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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/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         12th June 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>There is a certain cross-over between the
  32 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
  33 project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
  34 project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
  35 effort between the projects.  One person with a foot in both camps is
  36 Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
  37
  38 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
  39
  40 <p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
  41 days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
  42 getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
  43
  44 <p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
  45 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
  46 each other.</p>
  47
  48 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
  49 project?</strong></p>
  50
  51 <p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
  52 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
  53 [Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
  54 London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
  55 Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
  56 it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
  57 was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
  58 day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
  59 over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
  60 been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
  61 still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
  62 we'll get there one day.</p>
  63
  64 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
  65 Edu?</strong></p>
  66
  67 <p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
  68 it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
  69 that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
  70 very high quality work.</p>
  71
  72 <p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
  73 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
  74 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
  75 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
  76 community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
  77
  78 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
  79 Edu?</strong></p>
  80
  81 <p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
  82 separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
  83 what I originally rambled on about)</p>
  84
  85 <p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
  86 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
  87 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
  88 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
  89 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
  90 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
  91 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
  92 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
  93 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
  94 currently.</p>
  95
  96 <p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
  97 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
  98 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
  99 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
 100 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
 101 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
 102 autonomous.</p>
 103
 104 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 105
 106 <p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
 107 Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
 108 some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
 109 particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
 110 so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
 111
 112 <p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
 113 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
 114 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
 115 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
 116 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
 117 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
 118 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
 119 X.</p>
 120
 121 <p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
 122 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
 123 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
 124 it :p)
 125
 126 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 127 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 128
 129 <p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
 130 many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
 131 don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
 132 that.</p>
 133
 134 <p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
 135 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
 136 advantage of that.</p>
 137
 138 <p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
 139 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
 140 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
 141 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
 142 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
 143 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
 144 best solution for them.</p>
 145
 146 <p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
 147 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
 148 make a decision that would work for them.</p>
 149
 150       </div>
 151       <div class="tags">
 152
 153
 154         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>.
 155
 156
 157       </div>
 158     </div>
 159     <div class="padding"></div>
 160
 161     <div class="entry">
 162       <div class="title">
 163         <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>
 164       </div>
 165       <div class="date">
 166         11th June 2013
 167       </div>
 168       <div class="body">
 169         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
 170 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
 171 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
 172 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
 173 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
 174 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
 175 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
 176 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
 177 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
 178 i915 driver used by the
 179 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
 180 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
 181
 182 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
 183 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
 184 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
 185 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
 186 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
 187
 188 <pre>
 189 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
 190 update-initramfs -u -k all
 191 </pre>
 192
 193 <p>Since March 2012 there is
 194 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
 195 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
 196 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
 197 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
 198 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
 199 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
 200 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
 201 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
 202 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
 203 number.</p>
 204
 205 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
 206 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
 207
 208 <p><pre>
 209 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
 210     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
 211     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
 212  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
 213  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
 214     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
 215  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
 216     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 217  Latency: 0
 218  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
 219  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
 220  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
 221  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
 222  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
 223  Capabilities: <access denied>
 224  Kernel driver in use: i915
 225 </pre></p>
 226
 227 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
 228
 229 <p><pre>
 230 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
 231        ...
 232         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
 233         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
 234        ...
 235 }
 236 </pre></p>
 237
 238 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
 239 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
 240 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
 241 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
 242 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
 243 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
 244 yet shown up in
 245 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
 246 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
 247 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
 248 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
 249 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
 250 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
 251
 252 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
 253 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
 254 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
 255 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
 256 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
 257 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
 258 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
 259 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
 260 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
 261 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
 262 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
 263 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
 264
 265       </div>
 266       <div class="tags">
 267
 268
 269         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>.
 270
 271
 272       </div>
 273     </div>
 274     <div class="padding"></div>
 275
 276     <div class="entry">
 277       <div class="title">
 278         <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>
 279       </div>
 280       <div class="date">
 281         10th June 2013
 282       </div>
 283       <div class="body">
 284         <p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
 285 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
 286
 287 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
 288 2013-06-10</strong></p>
 289
 290 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
 291 alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
 292
 293 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
 294
 295 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
 296 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
 297 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
 298 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
 299 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
 300 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
 301 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
 302 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
 303 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
 304 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
 305 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
 306 desktop contains
 307 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
 308 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
 309 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
 310 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
 311
 312 <p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
 313 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
 314 Squeeze release.</p>
 315
 316 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
 317
 318 <ul>
 319
 320 <li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
 321 <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).
 322 <li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
 323 <li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
 324 <li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
 325
 326 </ul>
 327
 328 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
 329
 330 <ul>
 331
 332 <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.
 333 <li>Updated translation of the installation.
 334 <li>New Romanian translation.
 335 <li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
 336 <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).
 337 <li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
 338 <li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
 339 <li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
 340 <li>More testsuite tests.
 341 <li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
 342 <li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
 343
 344 <li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
 345 LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
 346
 347 <li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
 348 them up with GOsa².</li>
 349
 350 <li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
 351
 352 <li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
 353 slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
 354 entered password). </li>
 355
 356 </ul>
 357
 358 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
 359
 360 <ul>
 361
 362 <li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
 363
 364 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
 365 available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
 366 missing import feature).</li>
 367
 368 <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
 369
 370 <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
 371 own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
 372 unfixed.</li>
 373
 374 </ul>
 375
 376 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
 377
 378 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
 379
 380 <ul>
 381
 382 <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>
 383
 384 <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>
 385
 386 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
 387
 388 </ul>
 389
 390 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
 391 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
 392
 393 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
 394
 395 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
 396
 397       </div>
 398       <div class="tags">
 399
 400
 401         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>.
 402
 403
 404       </div>
 405     </div>
 406     <div class="padding"></div>
 407
 408     <div class="entry">
 409       <div class="title">
 410         <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>
 411       </div>
 412       <div class="date">
 413          5th June 2013
 414       </div>
 415       <div class="body">
 416         <p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
 417 We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
 418 hope to get released soon.  The two problems require some with PHP
 419 skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
 420 the project:
 421
 422 <ol>
 423
 424 <li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
 425   (slbackup-php) using the root user and password.  This is
 426   <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
 427   This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
 428   Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
 429
 430 <li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
 431   using ldif nor using CSV files.  The feature was disabled after a
 432   major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
 433   This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
 434   #698840</a>.</li>
 435
 436 </ol>
 437
 438 <p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
 439 (<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
 440 irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
 441
 442       </div>
 443       <div class="tags">
 444
 445
 446         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>.
 447
 448
 449       </div>
 450     </div>
 451     <div class="padding"></div>
 452
 453     <div class="entry">
 454       <div class="title">
 455         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a>
 456       </div>
 457       <div class="date">
 458          4th June 2013
 459       </div>
 460       <div class="body">
 461         <p>It has been a while since my last English
 462 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
 463 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
 464 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
 465 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
 466 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
 467
 468 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 469
 470 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
 471 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
 472 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
 473 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
 474
 475 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
 476 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
 477 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
 478
 479 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
 480 project?</strong></p>
 481
 482 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
 483 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
 484 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
 485 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
 486 manual.
 487
 488 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
 489 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
 490 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
 491 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
 492
 493 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
 494 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
 495 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
 496 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
 497 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
 498 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
 499 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
 500 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
 501 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
 502 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
 503
 504 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
 505 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
 506 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
 507 beautiful project.</p>
 508
 509 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 510 Edu?</strong></p>
 511
 512 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
 513 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
 514 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
 515
 516 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
 517 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
 518 of educational free software.</p>
 519
 520 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 521 Edu?</strong></p>
 522
 523 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
 524 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
 525 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
 526 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
 527 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
 528
 529 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
 530 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
 531 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
 532 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
 533 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
 534 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
 535 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
 536 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
 537
 538 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 539
 540 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
 541 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
 542 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
 543 also using the mathematical software
 544 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
 545 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
 546 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
 547
 548 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
 549 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
 550 statistics?</strong></p>
 551
 552 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
 553 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
 554 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
 555 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
 556
 557 <ul>
 558
 559 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
 560 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
 561 constructions in planar geometry
 562
 563 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
 564 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
 565 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
 566
 567 </ul>
 568
 569 <p>I like also
 570 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
 571 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
 572 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
 573
 574 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 575 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 576
 577 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
 578
 579 <ul>
 580
 581 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
 582
 583 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
 584     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
 585     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
 586
 587 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
 588
 589 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
 590     system.</li>
 591
 592 </ul>
 593
 594       </div>
 595       <div class="tags">
 596
 597
 598         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>.
 599
 600
 601       </div>
 602     </div>
 603     <div class="padding"></div>
 604
 605     <div class="entry">
 606       <div class="title">
 607         <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>
 608       </div>
 609       <div class="date">
 610          1st June 2013
 611       </div>
 612       <div class="body">
 613         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
 614 Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
 615 Created to help teachers teach, and pupils learn.  We have tried to
 616 tag them all using debtags use::learning and role::program, and using
 617 the debtags I was happy to be able to create a collage of the
 618 educational software packages installed by default, sorted by the
 619 debtag field.  Here it is.  Click on a image to learn more about the
 620 program.</p>
 621
 622 <!-- 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 -->
 623
 624 <p><strong>field::arts</strong></p>
 625 <p>
 626 <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>
 627 <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>
 628 <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>
 629 <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>
 630 <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>
 631 <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>
 632 <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>
 633 <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>
 634 <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>
 635 <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>
 636 <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>
 637 <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>
 638 <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>
 639 <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>
 640 </p>
 641
 642 <p><strong>field::astronomy</strong></p>
 643 <p>
 644 <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>
 645 <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>
 646 <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>
 647 <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>
 648 <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>
 649 <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>
 650 </p>
 651
 652 <p><strong>field::biology:structural</strong></p>
 653 <p>
 654 <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>
 655 </p>
 656
 657 <p><strong>field::chemistry</strong></p>
 658 <p>
 659 <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>
 660 <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>
 661 <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>
 662 <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>
 663 <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>
 664 <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>
 665 <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>
 666 <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>
 667 <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>
 668 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=viewmol'>[viewmol]</a>
 669 <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>
 670 </p>
 671
 672 <p><strong>field::electronics</strong></p>
 673 <p>
 674 <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>
 675 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpsim'>[gpsim]</a>
 676 </p>
 677
 678 <p><strong>field::geography</strong></p>
 679 <p>
 680 <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>
 681 <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>
 682 <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>
 683 </p>
 684
 685 <p><strong>field::linguistics</strong></p>
 686 <p>
 687 <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>
 688 <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>
 689 <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>
 690 <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>
 691 <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>
 692 </p>
 693
 694 <p><strong>field::mathematics</strong></p>
 695 <p>
 696 <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>
 697 <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>
 698 <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>
 699 <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>
 700 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geomview'>[geomview]</a>
 701 <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>
 702 <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>
 703 <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>
 704 <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>
 705 <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>
 706 <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>
 707 <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>
 708 <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>
 709 <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>
 710 <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>
 711 <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>
 712 <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>
 713 </p>
 714
 715 <p><strong>field::physics</strong></p>
 716 <p>
 717 <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>
 718 <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>
 719 </p>
 720
 721 <p><strong>field::TODO</strong></p>
 722 <p>
 723 <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>
 724 <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>
 725 <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>
 726 <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>
 727 <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>
 728 <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>
 729 <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>
 730 <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>
 731 <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>
 732 <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>
 733 </p>
 734
 735 <p>In total, 61 applications.  3 of them lacked screen shots on
 736 <a href="http://screenshot.debian.net">screenshot.debian.net</a>.  If
 737 you know of some packages we should install by default, please let us
 738 know on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu
 739 on irc.debian.org</a>, or our
 740 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">mailing list
 741 debian-edu@</a>.</p>
 742
 743       </div>
 744       <div class="tags">
 745
 746
 747         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>.
 748
 749
 750       </div>
 751     </div>
 752     <div class="padding"></div>
 753
 754     <div class="entry">
 755       <div class="title">
 756         <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>
 757       </div>
 758       <div class="date">
 759         27th May 2013
 760       </div>
 761       <div class="body">
 762         <p>Two days ago, I asked
 763 <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
 764 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
 765 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
 766 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
 767 and Windows 8.</p>
 768
 769 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
 770 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
 771 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
 772 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
 773 enough to tell.</p>
 774
 775 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
 776 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
 777 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
 778 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
 779 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
 780 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
 781 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
 782 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
 783 to follow.</p>
 784
 785 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
 786 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
 787 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
 788 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
 789 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
 790 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
 791 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
 792 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
 793
 794 <p>I've updated the
 795 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
 796 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
 797 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
 798 machine.</p>
 799
 800 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
 801 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
 802
 803       </div>
 804       <div class="tags">
 805
 806
 807         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>.
 808
 809
 810       </div>
 811     </div>
 812     <div class="padding"></div>
 813
 814     <div class="entry">
 815       <div class="title">
 816         <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>
 817       </div>
 818       <div class="date">
 819         25th May 2013
 820       </div>
 821       <div class="body">
 822         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
 823 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
 824 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
 825 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
 826 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
 827 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
 828
 829 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
 830 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
 831 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
 832 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
 833 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
 834 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
 835 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
 836 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
 837 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
 838 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
 839
 840 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
 841 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
 842 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
 843 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
 844 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
 845 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
 846
 847 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
 848 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
 849 on new Laptops?</p>
 850
 851       </div>
 852       <div class="tags">
 853
 854
 855         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>.
 856
 857
 858       </div>
 859     </div>
 860     <div class="padding"></div>
 861
 862     <div class="entry">
 863       <div class="title">
 864         <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>
 865       </div>
 866       <div class="date">
 867         17th May 2013
 868       </div>
 869       <div class="body">
 870         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
 871 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
 872 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
 873 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
 874 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
 875 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
 876 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
 877 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
 878 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
 879 donate some money</a>.
 880
 881 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
 882 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
 883 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
 884 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
 885 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
 886
 887 <p>The script,
 888 <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/>
 889 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
 890 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
 891 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
 892
 893 <ol>
 894
 895 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
 896 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
 897 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
 898     our configuration.</li>
 899 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
 900     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
 901     according to the profile specified in the config above,
 902     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
 903 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
 904     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
 905 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
 906
 907 </ol>
 908
 909 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
 910 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
 911 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
 912 the needed packages.</p>
 913
 914 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
 915 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
 916 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
 917 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
 918 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
 919 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
 920
 921 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
 922 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
 923 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
 924
 925 <p><pre>
 926 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
 927 DESKTOP="lxde"
 928 </pre></p>
 929
 930 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
 931 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
 932 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
 933 boot.</p>
 934
 935       </div>
 936       <div class="tags">
 937
 938
 939         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>.
 940
 941
 942       </div>
 943     </div>
 944     <div class="padding"></div>
 945
 946     <div class="entry">
 947       <div class="title">
 948         <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>
 949       </div>
 950       <div class="date">
 951         14th May 2013
 952       </div>
 953       <div class="body">
 954         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 955 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
 956 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
 957
 958 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
 959 2013-05-14</strong></p>
 960
 961 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
 962 alpha1, based on <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
 963 codename "Wheezy".</p>
 964
 965 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
 966
 967 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
 968 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
 969 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
 970 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
 971 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
 972 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
 973 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
 974 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
 975
 976 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
 977 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
 978 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
 979
 980 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
 981 <ul>
 982   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
 983     default.</li>
 984   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
 985   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
 986   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
 987     ibus-anthy.</li>
 988 </ul>
 989
 990 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
 991 <ul>
 992
 993   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
 994     reliability improvements.</li>
 995   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
 996     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
 997   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
 998     problems.</li>
 999   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
1000     direct:// URL.</li>
1001   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
1002   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
1003   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
1004   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
1005     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
1006   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
1007     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
1008 </ul>
1009
1010 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
1011 <ul>
1012
1013   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
1014     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
1015     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
1016   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
1017   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
1018     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
1019   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
1020   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
1021   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
1022     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
1023   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
1024     password submission problem
1025     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
1026
1027 </ul>
1028
1029 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
1030
1031 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
1032 <ul>
1033
1034   <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>
1035   <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>
1036   <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>
1037
1038 </ul>
1039
1040 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
1041
1042 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
1043
1044 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
1045
1046 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
1047
1048       </div>
1049       <div class="tags">
1050
1051
1052         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>.
1053
1054
1055       </div>
1056     </div>
1057     <div class="padding"></div>
1058
1059     <div class="entry">
1060       <div class="title">
1061         <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>
1062       </div>
1063       <div class="date">
1064         11th May 2013
1065       </div>
1066       <div class="body">
1067         <P>In January,
1068 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
1069 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
1070 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
1071 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
1072 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
1073 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
1074 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
1075 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
1076 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
1077 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
1078 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
1079 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
1080
1081 <p><table>
1082 <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>
1083 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
1084 <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>
1085 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
1086 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
1087 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
1088 <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>
1089 <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>
1090 <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>
1091 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
1092 </table></p>
1093
1094 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
1095 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
1096 available in experimental.</p>
1097
1098 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
1099 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
1100 for LEGO designers.</p>
1101
1102       </div>
1103       <div class="tags">
1104
1105
1106         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>.
1107
1108
1109       </div>
1110     </div>
1111     <div class="padding"></div>
1112
1113     <div class="entry">
1114       <div class="title">
1115         <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>
1116       </div>
1117       <div class="date">
1118          5th May 2013
1119       </div>
1120       <div class="body">
1121         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
1122 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
1123 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
1124 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
1125 soon.</p>
1126
1127 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
1128 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
1129 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
1130 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
1131 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
1132 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
1133 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
1134 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
1135 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
1136 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
1137 Edu.</a>
1138
1139 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
1140 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
1141 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
1142 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
1143 follow.<p>
1144
1145       </div>
1146       <div class="tags">
1147
1148
1149         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>.
1150
1151
1152       </div>
1153     </div>
1154     <div class="padding"></div>
1155
1156     <div class="entry">
1157       <div class="title">
1158         <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>
1159       </div>
1160       <div class="date">
1161         26th April 2013
1162       </div>
1163       <div class="body">
1164         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
1165 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
1166 announcement:</p>
1167
1168 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
1169 2013-04-26</strong></p>
1170
1171 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
1172 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
1173
1174 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
1175
1176 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
1177 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
1178 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
1179 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
1180 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
1181 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
1182 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
1183 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
1184 installed via the network.</p>
1185
1186 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
1187 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
1188 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
1189
1190 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
1191
1192 <ul>
1193 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
1194   <ul>
1195      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
1196      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
1197          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
1198          manual.)</li>
1199      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
1200      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
1201      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
1202      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
1203      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
1204      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
1205      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
1206      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
1207      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
1208      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
1209      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
1210      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
1211          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
1212          manual</a> for more details.</li>
1213      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
1214          installation.</li>
1215      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
1216          <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>
1217   </ul></li>
1218 </ul>
1219
1220 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
1221 <ul>
1222 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
1223     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
1224     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
1225 </ul>
1226
1227 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
1228 <ul>
1229 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
1230     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
1231     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
1232 </ul>
1233
1234 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
1235 <ul>
1236 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
1237     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
1238     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
1239 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
1240     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
1241     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
1242 </ul>
1243
1244 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
1245 <ul>
1246 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
1247     yet.</li>
1248 </ul>
1249
1250 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
1251
1252 <ul>
1253 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
1254     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
1255     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
1256 </ul>
1257
1258 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
1259
1260 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
1261 <ul>
1262 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
1263 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
1264 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
1265 </ul>
1266
1267 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
1268
1269 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
1270
1271 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
1272
1273 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
1274
1275       </div>
1276       <div class="tags">
1277
1278
1279         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>.
1280
1281
1282       </div>
1283     </div>
1284     <div class="padding"></div>
1285
1286     <div class="entry">
1287       <div class="title">
1288         <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>
1289       </div>
1290       <div class="date">
1291         16th April 2013
1292       </div>
1293       <div class="body">
1294         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
1295 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
1296 Details about the gathering can be found
1297 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
1298 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
1299 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
1300 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
1301 weekend.</p>
1302
1303 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
1304 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
1305 Edu release.</p>
1306
1307 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
1308
1309       </div>
1310       <div class="tags">
1311
1312
1313         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>.
1314
1315
1316       </div>
1317     </div>
1318     <div class="padding"></div>
1319
1320     <div class="entry">
1321       <div class="title">
1322         <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>
1323       </div>
1324       <div class="date">
1325          3rd April 2013
1326       </div>
1327       <div class="body">
1328         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
1329 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
1330 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
1331 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
1332
1333 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
1334 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
1335 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
1336 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
1337 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
1338 BTS. :)</p>
1339
1340       </div>
1341       <div class="tags">
1342
1343
1344         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>.
1345
1346
1347       </div>
1348     </div>
1349     <div class="padding"></div>
1350
1351     <div class="entry">
1352       <div class="title">
1353         <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>
1354       </div>
1355       <div class="date">
1356         26th March 2013
1357       </div>
1358       <div class="body">
1359         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
1360 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
1361 font you use when printing.</p>
1362
1363 <p>Three years ago,
1364 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
1365 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
1366 changed their default front from
1367 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
1368 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
1369 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
1370 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
1371 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
1372 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
1373 prints.</p>
1374
1375 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
1376 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
1377 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
1378 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
1379 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
1380 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
1381 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
1382 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
1383 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
1384 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
1385 depend on the documents printed.</p>
1386
1387 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
1388 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
1389 and save some money in the process.</p>
1390
1391 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
1392 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
1393 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
1394 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
1395 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
1396 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
1397 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
1398 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
1399 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
1400
1401       </div>
1402       <div class="tags">
1403
1404
1405         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1406
1407
1408       </div>
1409     </div>
1410     <div class="padding"></div>
1411
1412     <div class="entry">
1413       <div class="title">
1414         <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>
1415       </div>
1416       <div class="date">
1417         24th March 2013
1418       </div>
1419       <div class="body">
1420         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
1421 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
1422 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
1423 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
1424 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
1425 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
1426 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
1427 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
1428 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
1429 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
1430 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
1431 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
1432
1433 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
1434 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
1435 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
1436 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
1437 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
1438 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
1439 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
1440 all I had to do was to use the
1441 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
1442 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
1443 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
1444 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
1445 xsltproc/fop (aka
1446 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
1447 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
1448 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
1449 technical detail.</p>
1450
1451 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
1452 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
1453 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
1454 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
1455 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
1456 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
1457
1458 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
1459 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
1460 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
1461 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
1462 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
1463 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
1464 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
1465 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
1466 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
1467
1468 <p><blockquote><pre>
1469 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
1470 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
1471   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
1472     &lt;hr/&gt;
1473   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
1474 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
1475 </pre></blockquote></p>
1476
1477 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
1478
1479 <p><blockquote><pre>
1480 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
1481 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
1482   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
1483     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
1484       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
1485     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
1486   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
1487 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
1488 </pre></blockquote></p>
1489
1490 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
1491 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
1492 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
1493 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
1494 enough.</p>
1495
1496 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
1497 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
1498 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
1499 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
1500 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
1501 look like this:</p>
1502
1503 <p><blockquote><pre>
1504 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
1505 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
1506   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
1507     &lt;br/&gt;
1508   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
1509 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
1510 </pre></blockquote></p>
1511
1512 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
1513
1514 <p><blockquote><pre>
1515 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
1516 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
1517   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
1518   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
1519     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
1520   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
1521 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
1522 </pre></blockquote></p>
1523
1524 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
1525 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
1526 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
1527 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
1528 page.</p>
1529
1530 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
1531 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
1532 github</a>
1533 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
1534 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
1535 days.</p>
1536
1537       </div>
1538       <div class="tags">
1539
1540
1541         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>.
1542
1543
1544       </div>
1545     </div>
1546     <div class="padding"></div>
1547
1548     <div class="entry">
1549       <div class="title">
1550         <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>
1551       </div>
1552       <div class="date">
1553         17th March 2013
1554       </div>
1555       <div class="body">
1556         <p>Via
1557 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
1558 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
1559 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
1560 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
1561 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
1562 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
1563 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
1564
1565 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
1566 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
1567
1568 <blockquote>
1569 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
1570 </blockquote>
1571
1572 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
1573
1574 <blockquote>
1575 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
1576 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
1577 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
1578 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
1579 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
1580 </blockquote>
1581
1582 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
1583 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
1584 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
1585 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
1586
1587 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
1588 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
1589
1590 <blockquote>
1591 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
1592 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
1593 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
1594 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
1595 </blockquote>
1596
1597 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
1598 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
1599 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
1600 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
1601 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
1602
1603 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
1604 embedding:</p>
1605
1606 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
1607
1608       </div>
1609       <div class="tags">
1610
1611
1612         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>.
1613
1614
1615       </div>
1616     </div>
1617     <div class="padding"></div>
1618
1619     <div class="entry">
1620       <div class="title">
1621         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
1622       </div>
1623       <div class="date">
1624          8th March 2013
1625       </div>
1626       <div class="body">
1627         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
1628 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
1629 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
1630 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
1631 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
1632 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
1633 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
1634
1635 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
1636
1637 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
1638 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
1639
1640 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
1641 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
1642 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
1643 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
1644 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
1645 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
1646
1647 <p>Images are available for download at
1648 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
1649
1650 <p>md5sums:
1651 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
1652 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
1653 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
1654
1655 <p>sha1sums:
1656 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
1657 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
1658 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
1659
1660 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
1661
1662 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
1663 2013-03-03:</p>
1664
1665 <ul>
1666   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
1667   <ul>
1668         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
1669         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
1670   </ul></li>
1671   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
1672   <ul>
1673         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
1674         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
1675   </ul></li>
1676   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
1677      <ul>
1678         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
1679         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
1680         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
1681                 Closes: #664596</li>
1682         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
1683                 Closes: #664976</li>
1684         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
1685            <ul>
1686                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
1687                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
1688            </ul></li>
1689         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
1690            <ul>
1691                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
1692                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
1693                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
1694                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
1695                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
1696            </ul></li>
1697         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
1698     </ul>
1699   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
1700     <ul>
1701         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
1702     </ul></li>
1703 </ul>
1704
1705 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
1706 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
1707 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
1708 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
1709
1710 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
1711 mailinglist
1712 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
1713 </p></blockquote>
1714
1715 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
1716
1717       </div>
1718       <div class="tags">
1719
1720
1721         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>.
1722
1723
1724       </div>
1725     </div>
1726     <div class="padding"></div>
1727
1728     <div class="entry">
1729       <div class="title">
1730         <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>
1731       </div>
1732       <div class="date">
1733          3rd March 2013
1734       </div>
1735       <div class="body">
1736         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
1737 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
1738 support using
1739 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
1740 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
1741 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
1742 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
1743 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
1744 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
1745 using the GNU LGPL, and
1746 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
1747
1748 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
1749 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
1750 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
1751 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
1752 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
1753 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
1754
1755 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
1756 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
1757 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
1758 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
1759 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
1760 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
1761 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
1762 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
1763 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
1764 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
1765 signal distribution is handled using
1766 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
1767 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
1768 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
1769 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
1770 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
1771 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
1772 them up a bit more first.</p>
1773
1774 <p>The development is coordinated on the
1775 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
1776 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
1777 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
1778 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
1779 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
1780 development.</p>
1781
1782       </div>
1783       <div class="tags">
1784
1785
1786         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>.
1787
1788
1789       </div>
1790     </div>
1791     <div class="padding"></div>
1792
1793     <div class="entry">
1794       <div class="title">
1795         <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>
1796       </div>
1797       <div class="date">
1798         27th February 2013
1799       </div>
1800       <div class="body">
1801         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
1802 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
1803 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
1804 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
1805 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
1806 (where I am the chair of the board) and
1807 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
1808 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
1809 GNU», with this description:
1810
1811 <p><blockquote>
1812 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
1813 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
1814 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
1815 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
1816 </blockquote></p>
1817
1818 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
1819 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
1820 am really curious how many will show up.  See
1821 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
1822 page</a> for the location details.</p>
1823
1824       </div>
1825       <div class="tags">
1826
1827
1828         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>.
1829
1830
1831       </div>
1832     </div>
1833     <div class="padding"></div>
1834
1835     <div class="entry">
1836       <div class="title">
1837         <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>
1838       </div>
1839       <div class="date">
1840         15th February 2013
1841       </div>
1842       <div class="body">
1843         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
1844 now a great source of free maps available from
1845 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
1846 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
1847 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
1848 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
1849 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
1850 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
1851 page for descriptions).</p>
1852
1853 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
1854 map you can just edit the
1855 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
1856 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
1857
1858       </div>
1859       <div class="tags">
1860
1861
1862         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>.
1863
1864
1865       </div>
1866     </div>
1867     <div class="padding"></div>
1868
1869     <div class="entry">
1870       <div class="title">
1871         <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>
1872       </div>
1873       <div class="date">
1874         12th February 2013
1875       </div>
1876       <div class="body">
1877         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
1878 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
1879 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
1880 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
1881 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
1882 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
1883 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
1884 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
1885 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
1886 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
1887 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
1888 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
1889 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
1890 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
1891 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
1892 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
1893
1894 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
1895 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
1896 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
1897 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
1898 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
1899 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
1900 fields:</p>
1901
1902 <p><pre>
1903 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
1904 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
1905 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
1906 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
1907 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
1908 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
1909 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
1910 </pre></p>
1911
1912 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
1913 answer regarding
1914 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
1915 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
1916 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
1917 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
1918
1919 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
1920
1921 <p><pre>
1922 BEGIN:VCARD
1923 VERSION:2.1
1924 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
1925 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
1926 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
1927 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
1928 REV:20130212T095000Z
1929 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
1930 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
1931 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
1932 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
1933 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
1934 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
1935 END:VCARD
1936 </pre></p>
1937
1938 <p>The resulting QR code created using
1939 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
1940 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
1941 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
1942 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
1943 system.</p>
1944
1945 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
1946
1947 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
1948 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
1949 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
1950 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
1951
1952 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
1953 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
1954
1955       </div>
1956       <div class="tags">
1957
1958
1959         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>.
1960
1961
1962       </div>
1963     </div>
1964     <div class="padding"></div>
1965
1966     <div class="entry">
1967       <div class="title">
1968         <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>
1969       </div>
1970       <div class="date">
1971         10th February 2013
1972       </div>
1973       <div class="body">
1974         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
1975
1976 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
1977 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
1978 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
1979 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
1980 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
1981 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
1982 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
1983 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
1984 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
1985 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
1986 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
1987
1988 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
1989 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
1990 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
1991 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
1992 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
1993 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
1994 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
1995 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
1996 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
1997 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
1998 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
1999 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
2000 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
2001 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
2002 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
2003 ones own
2004 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
2005 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
2006 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
2007 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
2008 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
2009 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
2010 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
2011 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
2012 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
2013 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
2014 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
2015
2016 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
2017 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
2018 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
2019 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
2020 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
2021 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
2022
2023 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
2024 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
2025 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
2026
2027       </div>
2028       <div class="tags">
2029
2030
2031         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2032
2033
2034       </div>
2035     </div>
2036     <div class="padding"></div>
2037
2038     <div class="entry">
2039       <div class="title">
2040         <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>
2041       </div>
2042       <div class="date">
2043          2nd February 2013
2044       </div>
2045       <div class="body">
2046         <p>My
2047 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
2048 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
2049 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
2050 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
2051 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
2052 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
2053 version too.</p>
2054
2055 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
2056 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
2057 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
2058 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
2059 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
2060 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
2061 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
2062 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
2063
2064 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
2065 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
2066 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
2067 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
2068 it. :)</p>
2069
2070 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2071 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2072 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2073
2074       </div>
2075       <div class="tags">
2076
2077
2078         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>.
2079
2080
2081       </div>
2082     </div>
2083     <div class="padding"></div>
2084
2085     <div class="entry">
2086       <div class="title">
2087         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
2088       </div>
2089       <div class="date">
2090         22nd January 2013
2091       </div>
2092       <div class="body">
2093         <p>Yesterday, I
2094 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
2095 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
2096 pluggable hardware devices, which I
2097 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
2098 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
2099 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
2100 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
2101 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
2102 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
2103 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
2104 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
2105 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
2106 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
2107
2108 <pre>
2109 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
2110 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
2111 </pre>
2112
2113 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
2114 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
2115 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
2116 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
2117
2118 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
2119 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
2120 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
2121 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
2122 word.</p>
2123
2124 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
2125 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
2126 process.</p>
2127
2128 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
2129 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
2130
2131       </div>
2132       <div class="tags">
2133
2134
2135         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2136
2137
2138       </div>
2139     </div>
2140     <div class="padding"></div>
2141
2142     <div class="entry">
2143       <div class="title">
2144         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
2145       </div>
2146       <div class="date">
2147         21st January 2013
2148       </div>
2149       <div class="body">
2150         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
2151 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
2152 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
2153 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
2154 it, fetch the
2155 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
2156 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
2157 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
2158 autostart script.</p>
2159
2160 <p>The design is simple:</p>
2161
2162 <ul>
2163
2164 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
2165 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
2166
2167 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
2168 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
2169 initially did.</li>
2170
2171 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
2172 the APT database, a database
2173 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
2174 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
2175
2176 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
2177 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
2178 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
2179 package or packages.</li>
2180
2181 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
2182 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
2183
2184 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
2185 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
2186
2187 </ul>
2188
2189 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
2190 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
2191 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
2192 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
2193
2194 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
2195 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
2196 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
2197 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
2198 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
2199
2200 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
2201 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
2202 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
2203 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
2204 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
2205 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
2206 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
2207 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
2208
2209 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
2210 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
2211 '<tt>svn checkout
2212 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
2213 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
2214 devscripts package.</p>
2215
2216 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
2217 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
2218 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
2219 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
2220 instructions</a> for details.</p>
2221
2222       </div>
2223       <div class="tags">
2224
2225
2226         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>.
2227
2228
2229       </div>
2230     </div>
2231     <div class="padding"></div>
2232
2233     <div class="entry">
2234       <div class="title">
2235         <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>
2236       </div>
2237       <div class="date">
2238         19th January 2013
2239       </div>
2240       <div class="body">
2241         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
2242 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
2243 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
2244 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
2245 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
2246 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
2247 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
2248 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
2249 not a durable solution.
2250
2251 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
2252 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
2253
2254 <ul>
2255
2256 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
2257   than A4).</li>
2258 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
2259 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
2260 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
2261 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
2262 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
2263 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
2264 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
2265 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
2266 size).</li>
2267 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
2268   X.org packages.</li>
2269 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
2270   the time).
2271
2272 </ul>
2273
2274 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
2275 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
2276 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
2277 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
2278 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
2279 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
2280 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
2281 still be useful.</p>
2282
2283 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
2284 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
2285 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
2286 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
2287 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
2288 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
2289
2290       </div>
2291       <div class="tags">
2292
2293
2294         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>.
2295
2296
2297       </div>
2298     </div>
2299     <div class="padding"></div>
2300
2301     <div class="entry">
2302       <div class="title">
2303         <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>
2304       </div>
2305       <div class="date">
2306         18th January 2013
2307       </div>
2308       <div class="body">
2309         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
2310 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
2311 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
2312 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
2313 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
2314 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
2315 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
2316
2317 <pre>
2318 #!/usr/bin/python
2319 import sys
2320 import apt
2321 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
2322     cache = apt.Cache()
2323     cache.open(None)
2324     thepkgs = []
2325     for pkg in cache:
2326         version = pkg.candidate
2327         if version is None:
2328             version = pkg.installed
2329         if version is None:
2330             continue
2331         record = version.record
2332         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
2333             continue
2334         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
2335         for t in mime_types:
2336             t = t.rstrip().strip()
2337             if t == mimetype:
2338                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
2339     return thepkgs
2340 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
2341 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
2342     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
2343 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
2344 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
2345     print "  %s" %pkg
2346 </pre>
2347
2348 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
2349
2350 <pre>
2351 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
2352 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
2353   gecko-mediaplayer
2354 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
2355 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
2356   browser-plugin-gnash
2357 %
2358 </pre>
2359
2360 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
2361 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
2362 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
2363 anyone working on adding it?</p>
2364
2365 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
2366 request for icweasel support for this feature is
2367 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
2368 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
2369 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
2370 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
2371
2372       </div>
2373       <div class="tags">
2374
2375
2376         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>.
2377
2378
2379       </div>
2380     </div>
2381     <div class="padding"></div>
2382
2383     <div class="entry">
2384       <div class="title">
2385         <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>
2386       </div>
2387       <div class="date">
2388         16th January 2013
2389       </div>
2390       <div class="body">
2391         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
2392 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
2393 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
2394 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
2395 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
2396 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
2397 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
2398 downloaded by the browser.</p>
2399
2400 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
2401 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
2402 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
2403 can be found on the
2404 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
2405 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
2406 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
2407 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
2408 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
2409
2410 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
2411
2412 <pre>
2413   count MIME type
2414   ----- -----------------------
2415      32 text/plain
2416      30 audio/mpeg
2417      29 image/png
2418      28 image/jpeg
2419      27 application/ogg
2420      26 audio/x-mp3
2421      25 image/tiff
2422      25 image/gif
2423      22 image/bmp
2424      22 audio/x-wav
2425      20 audio/x-flac
2426      19 audio/x-mpegurl
2427      18 video/x-ms-asf
2428      18 audio/x-musepack
2429      18 audio/x-mpeg
2430      18 application/x-ogg
2431      17 video/mpeg
2432      17 audio/x-scpls
2433      17 audio/ogg
2434      16 video/x-ms-wmv
2435 </pre>
2436
2437 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
2438
2439 <pre>
2440   count MIME type
2441   ----- -----------------------
2442      33 text/plain
2443      32 image/png
2444      32 image/jpeg
2445      29 audio/mpeg
2446      27 image/gif
2447      26 image/tiff
2448      26 application/ogg
2449      25 audio/x-mp3
2450      22 image/bmp
2451      21 audio/x-wav
2452      19 audio/x-mpegurl
2453      19 audio/x-mpeg
2454      18 video/mpeg
2455      18 audio/x-scpls
2456      18 audio/x-flac
2457      18 application/x-ogg
2458      17 video/x-ms-asf
2459      17 text/html
2460      17 audio/x-musepack
2461      16 image/x-xbitmap
2462 </pre>
2463
2464 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
2465
2466 <pre>
2467   count MIME type
2468   ----- -----------------------
2469      31 text/plain
2470      31 image/png
2471      31 image/jpeg
2472      29 audio/mpeg
2473      28 application/ogg
2474      27 image/gif
2475      26 image/tiff
2476      26 audio/x-mp3
2477      23 audio/x-wav
2478      22 image/bmp
2479      21 audio/x-flac
2480      20 audio/x-mpegurl
2481      19 audio/x-mpeg
2482      18 video/x-ms-asf
2483      18 video/mpeg
2484      18 audio/x-scpls
2485      18 application/x-ogg
2486      17 audio/x-musepack
2487      16 video/x-ms-wmv
2488      16 video/x-msvideo
2489 </pre>
2490
2491 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
2492 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
2493 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
2494 issues.</p>
2495
2496 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
2497 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
2498
2499       </div>
2500       <div class="tags">
2501
2502
2503         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>.
2504
2505
2506       </div>
2507     </div>
2508     <div class="padding"></div>
2509
2510     <div class="entry">
2511       <div class="title">
2512         <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>
2513       </div>
2514       <div class="date">
2515         15th January 2013
2516       </div>
2517       <div class="body">
2518         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
2519 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
2520 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
2521 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
2522 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
2523 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
2524 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
2525 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
2526 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
2527 packages.</p>
2528
2529 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
2530 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
2531 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
2532 modalias.</p>
2533
2534 <p><blockquote>
2535 Package: package-name
2536 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
2537 </blockquote></p>
2538
2539 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
2540 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
2541
2542 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
2543 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
2544
2545 <p><blockquote>
2546 Package: cheese
2547 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
2548 </blockquote></p>
2549
2550 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
2551 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
2552
2553 <p><blockquote>
2554 Package: pcmciautils
2555 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
2556 </blockquote></p>
2557
2558 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
2559 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
2560
2561 <p><blockquote>
2562 Package: colorhug-client
2563 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
2564 </blockquote></p>
2565
2566 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
2567 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
2568 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
2569
2570 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
2571 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
2572 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
2573 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
2574 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
2575 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
2576 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
2577 Raring.</p>
2578
2579 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
2580 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
2581 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
2582 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
2583 try the
2584 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
2585 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
2586 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
2587 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
2588
2589 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
2590 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
2591
2592 <p><blockquote>
2593 % ./hw-support-lookup
2594 <br>yubikey-personalization
2595 <br>%
2596 </blockquote></p>
2597
2598 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
2599 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
2600
2601 <p><blockquote>
2602 % ./hw-support-lookup
2603 <br>pcmciautils
2604 <br>%
2605 </blockquote></p>
2606
2607 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
2608 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
2609 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
2610
2611 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
2612 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
2613 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
2614 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
2615 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
2616 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
2617 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
2618 see if it work.</p>
2619
2620 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
2621 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
2622 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
2623 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
2624
2625       </div>
2626       <div class="tags">
2627
2628
2629         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>.
2630
2631
2632       </div>
2633     </div>
2634     <div class="padding"></div>
2635
2636     <div class="entry">
2637       <div class="title">
2638         <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>
2639       </div>
2640       <div class="date">
2641         14th January 2013
2642       </div>
2643       <div class="body">
2644         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
2645 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
2646 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
2647 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
2648 in
2649 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
2650 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
2651
2652 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
2653
2654 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
2655 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
2656 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
2657 &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;,
2658 &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
2659 &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;.
2660
2661 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
2662 this shell script:</p>
2663
2664 <pre>
2665 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
2666 </pre>
2667
2668 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
2669 using modinfo:</p>
2670
2671 <pre>
2672 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
2673 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
2674 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
2675 %
2676 </pre>
2677
2678 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
2679
2680 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
2681 Bridge memory controller:</p>
2682
2683 <p><blockquote>
2684 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
2685 </blockquote></p>
2686
2687 <p>This represent these values:</p>
2688
2689 <pre>
2690  v   00008086  (vendor)
2691  d   00002770  (device)
2692  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
2693  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
2694  bc  06        (bus class)
2695  sc  00        (bus subclass)
2696  i   00        (interface)
2697 </pre>
2698
2699 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
2700 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
2701 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
2702 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
2703
2704 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
2705 means.</p>
2706
2707 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
2708
2709 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
2710 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
2711
2712 <p><blockquote>
2713 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
2714 </blockquote></p>
2715
2716 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
2717
2718 <pre>
2719  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
2720  p    0001  (device product)
2721  d    0206  (bcddevice)
2722  dc     09  (device class)
2723  dsc    00  (device subclass)
2724  dp     00  (device protocol)
2725  ic     09  (interface class)
2726  isc    00  (interface subclass)
2727  ip     00  (interface protocol)
2728 </pre>
2729
2730 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
2731 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
2732 these alias entries show up:</p>
2733
2734 <p><blockquote>
2735 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
2736 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
2737 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
2738 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
2739 </blockquote></p>
2740
2741 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
2742 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
2743 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
2744
2745 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
2746
2747 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
2748 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
2749
2750 <p><blockquote>
2751 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
2752 </blockquote></p>
2753
2754 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
2755
2756 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
2757
2758 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
2759 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
2760 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
2761
2762 <p><blockquote>
2763 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
2764 </blockquote></p>
2765
2766 <p>The values present are</p>
2767
2768 <pre>
2769  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
2770  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
2771  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
2772  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
2773  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
2774  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
2775  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
2776  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
2777  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
2778  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
2779  ct   10             (chassis type)
2780  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
2781 </pre>
2782
2783 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
2784 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
2785
2786 <pre>
2787   3 Desktop
2788   4 Low Profile Desktop
2789   5 Pizza Box
2790   6 Mini Tower
2791   7 Tower
2792   8 Portable
2793   9 Laptop
2794  10 Notebook
2795  11 Hand Held
2796  12 Docking Station
2797  13 All In One
2798  14 Sub Notebook
2799  15 Space-saving
2800  16 Lunch Box
2801  17 Main Server Chassis
2802  18 Expansion Chassis
2803  19 Sub Chassis
2804  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
2805  21 Peripheral Chassis
2806  22 RAID Chassis
2807  23 Rack Mount Chassis
2808  24 Sealed-case PC
2809  25 Multi-system
2810  26 CompactPCI
2811  27 AdvancedTCA
2812  28 Blade
2813  29 Blade Enclosing
2814 </pre>
2815
2816 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
2817 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
2818 claim it is a desktop.</p>
2819
2820 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
2821
2822 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
2823 test machine:</p>
2824
2825 <p><blockquote>
2826 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
2827 </blockquote></p>
2828
2829 <p>The values present are</p>
2830
2831 <pre>
2832   ty  01  (type)
2833   pr  00  (prototype)
2834   id  00  (id)
2835   ex  00  (extra)
2836 </pre>
2837
2838 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
2839 the valid values are.</p>
2840
2841 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
2842
2843 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
2844 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
2845 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
2846 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
2847 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
2848 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
2849 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
2850
2851 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
2852
2853 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
2854 one can use the following shell script:</p>
2855
2856 <pre>
2857   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
2858     echo "$id" ; \
2859     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
2860   done
2861 </pre>
2862
2863 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
2864 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
2865
2866 <pre>
2867   acpi:ACPI0003:
2868     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
2869   acpi:device:
2870   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
2871   acpi:IBM0068:
2872     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
2873     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
2874     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
2875     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
2876   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
2877     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
2878     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
2879     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
2880   [...]
2881 </pre>
2882
2883 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
2884 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
2885 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
2886 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
2887
2888 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
2889 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
2890 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
2891
2892       </div>
2893       <div class="tags">
2894
2895
2896         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>.
2897
2898
2899       </div>
2900     </div>
2901     <div class="padding"></div>
2902
2903     <div class="entry">
2904       <div class="title">
2905         <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>
2906       </div>
2907       <div class="date">
2908         10th January 2013
2909       </div>
2910       <div class="body">
2911         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
2912 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
2913 Launcher and updated the Debian package
2914 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
2915 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
2916 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
2917 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
2918 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
2919 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
2920 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
2921 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
2922 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
2923 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
2924 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
2925 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
2926 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
2927 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
2928 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
2929
2930       </div>
2931       <div class="tags">
2932
2933
2934         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>.
2935
2936
2937       </div>
2938     </div>
2939     <div class="padding"></div>
2940
2941     <div class="entry">
2942       <div class="title">
2943         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
2944       </div>
2945       <div class="date">
2946          9th January 2013
2947       </div>
2948       <div class="body">
2949         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
2950 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
2951 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
2952 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
2953 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
2954 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
2955 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
2956 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
2957 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
2958 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
2959 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
2960
2961 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
2962 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
2963 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
2964 simple:
2965
2966 <ul>
2967
2968 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
2969   starting when a user log in.</li>
2970
2971 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
2972   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
2973
2974 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
2975   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
2976   packages.</li>
2977
2978 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
2979   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
2980
2981 </ul>
2982
2983 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
2984 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
2985 discover database to find packages and
2986 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
2987 packages.</p>
2988
2989 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
2990 draft package is now checked into
2991 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
2992 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
2993 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
2994 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
2995 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
2996 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
2997 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
2998 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
2999 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
3000 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
3001 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
3002 because of the freeze).</p>
3003
3004 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
3005 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
3006 inserted):</p>
3007
3008 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
3009
3010 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
3011 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
3012 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
3013
3014 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
3015 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
3016 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
3017 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
3018 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
3019 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
3020 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
3021
3022 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
3023 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
3024 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
3025 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
3026 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
3027 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
3028 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
3029 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
3030 not be installed?</p>
3031
3032 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
3033 please send me an email. :)</p>
3034
3035       </div>
3036       <div class="tags">
3037
3038
3039         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>.
3040
3041
3042       </div>
3043     </div>
3044     <div class="padding"></div>
3045
3046     <div class="entry">
3047       <div class="title">
3048         <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>
3049       </div>
3050       <div class="date">
3051          2nd January 2013
3052       </div>
3053       <div class="body">
3054         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
3055 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
3056 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
3057 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
3058 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
3059 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
3060 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
3061 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
3062 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
3063 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
3064
3065 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
3066 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
3067 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
3068
3069       </div>
3070       <div class="tags">
3071
3072
3073         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>.
3074
3075
3076       </div>
3077     </div>
3078     <div class="padding"></div>
3079
3080     <div class="entry">
3081       <div class="title">
3082         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
3083       </div>
3084       <div class="date">
3085         28th December 2012
3086       </div>
3087       <div class="body">
3088         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
3089 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
3090 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
3091 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
3092 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
3093 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
3094 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
3095 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
3096 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
3097 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
3098 followed by many others. :)</p>
3099
3100 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
3101 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
3102 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
3103 you want to donate to the project.</p>
3104
3105       </div>
3106       <div class="tags">
3107
3108
3109         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>.
3110
3111
3112       </div>
3113     </div>
3114     <div class="padding"></div>
3115
3116     <div class="entry">
3117       <div class="title">
3118         <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>
3119       </div>
3120       <div class="date">
3121         25th December 2012
3122       </div>
3123       <div class="body">
3124         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
3125 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
3126
3127 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
3128 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
3129 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
3130 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
3131 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
3132 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
3133 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
3134 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
3135 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
3136 name.</p>
3137
3138 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
3139 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
3140 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
3141
3142 <blockquote><pre>
3143 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
3144 cd bitcoin
3145 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
3146 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
3147 </pre></blockquote>
3148
3149 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
3150 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
3151 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
3152 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
3153 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
3154 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
3155 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
3156 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
3157 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
3158
3159 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3160 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3161 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3162
3163       </div>
3164       <div class="tags">
3165
3166
3167         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>.
3168
3169
3170       </div>
3171     </div>
3172     <div class="padding"></div>
3173
3174     <div class="entry">
3175       <div class="title">
3176         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
3177       </div>
3178       <div class="date">
3179         21st December 2012
3180       </div>
3181       <div class="body">
3182         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
3183 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
3184 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
3185 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
3186 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
3187 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
3188 is now maintained by a
3189 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
3190 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
3191 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
3192 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
3193 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
3194 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
3195 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
3196 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
3197 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
3198 Corallo in a
3199 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
3200 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
3201 Debian package.</p>
3202
3203 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
3204 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
3205 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
3206 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
3207 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
3208 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
3209 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
3210 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
3211 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
3212 new version to unstable.
3213
3214 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
3215 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
3216 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
3217 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
3218 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
3219 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
3220 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
3221 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
3222 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
3223 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
3224 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
3225 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
3226 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
3227 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
3228 have not tested them.</p>
3229
3230 <p>My
3231 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
3232 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
3233 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
3234 years ago, as can be
3235 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
3236 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
3237 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
3238 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
3239 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
3240 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
3241 the same address as last time,
3242 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3243
3244       </div>
3245       <div class="tags">
3246
3247
3248         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>.
3249
3250
3251       </div>
3252     </div>
3253     <div class="padding"></div>
3254
3255     <div class="entry">
3256       <div class="title">
3257         <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>
3258       </div>
3259       <div class="date">
3260         18th December 2012
3261       </div>
3262       <div class="body">
3263         <p>A few days ago I came across
3264 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
3265 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
3266 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
3267 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
3268 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
3269 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
3270 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
3271 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
3272 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
3273
3274 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
3275 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
3276 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
3277 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
3278
3279 <blockquote><pre>
3280 2004-05-27 Book Store
3281       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
3282       Liabilities:Visa
3283 </pre></blockquote>
3284
3285 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
3286 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
3287 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
3288 Spang</a>,
3289 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
3290 Keen</a>,
3291 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
3292 Cantino</a> and
3293 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
3294 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
3295 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
3296 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
3297 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
3298
3299 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
3300 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
3301 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
3302 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
3303 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
3304
3305 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
3306 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
3307 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
3308 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
3309 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
3310 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
3311 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
3312 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
3313 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
3314
3315       </div>
3316       <div class="tags">
3317
3318
3319         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>.
3320
3321
3322       </div>
3323     </div>
3324     <div class="padding"></div>
3325
3326     <div class="entry">
3327       <div class="title">
3328         <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>
3329       </div>
3330       <div class="date">
3331          6th December 2012
3332       </div>
3333       <div class="body">
3334         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
3335 Oslo</a>, we use the
3336 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
3337 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
3338 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
3339 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
3340 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
3341 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
3342 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
3343 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
3344 Python.</p>
3345
3346 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
3347 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
3348 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
3349 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
3350 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
3351 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
3352
3353 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
3354 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
3355 user currently logged in:</p>
3356
3357 <blockquote><pre>
3358 #!/usr/bin/env python
3359 import getpass
3360 import xmlrpclib
3361 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
3362 username = getpass.getuser()
3363 password = getpass.getpass()
3364 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
3365 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
3366 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
3367 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
3368 result = server.logout(sessionid)
3369 print result
3370 </pre></blockquote>
3371
3372 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
3373 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
3374
3375       </div>
3376       <div class="tags">
3377
3378
3379         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>.
3380
3381
3382       </div>
3383     </div>
3384     <div class="padding"></div>
3385
3386     <div class="entry">
3387       <div class="title">
3388         <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>
3389       </div>
3390       <div class="date">
3391         17th November 2012
3392       </div>
3393       <div class="body">
3394         <p>While working on a
3395 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
3396 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
3397 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
3398 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
3399 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
3400 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
3401
3402 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
3403 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
3404 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
3405 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
3406 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
3407 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
3408 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
3409 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
3410 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
3411 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
3412 arguments.</p>
3413
3414 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
3415 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
3416 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
3417 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
3418 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
3419 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
3420 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
3421 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
3422
3423 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
3424 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
3425 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
3426 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
3427 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
3428 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
3429 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
3430 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
3431 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
3432 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
3433 correct right holder.</p>
3434
3435 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
3436 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
3437 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
3438 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
3439 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
3440 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
3441 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
3442 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
3443 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
3444 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
3445 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
3446 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
3447 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
3448 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
3449
3450 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
3451 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
3452 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
3453
3454 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
3455 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
3456
3457       </div>
3458       <div class="tags">
3459
3460
3461         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>.
3462
3463
3464       </div>
3465     </div>
3466     <div class="padding"></div>
3467
3468     <div class="entry">
3469       <div class="title">
3470         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
3471       </div>
3472       <div class="date">
3473         14th November 2012
3474       </div>
3475       <div class="body">
3476         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
3477 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
3478 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
3479 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
3480 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
3481 the people behind the German
3482 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
3483 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
3484 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
3485
3486 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3487
3488 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
3489 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
3490 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
3491
3492 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
3493 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
3494 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
3495 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
3496 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
3497 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
3498
3499 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
3500 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
3501 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
3502 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
3503 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
3504 relationship management and the communication processes in the
3505 project.</p>
3506
3507 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
3508 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
3509 and a yoga teacher.</p>
3510
3511 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
3512 project?</strong></p>
3513
3514 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
3515
3516 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
3517 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
3518 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
3519 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
3520 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
3521 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
3522 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
3523 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
3524 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
3525 parents.</p>
3526
3527 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
3528 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
3529 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
3530 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
3531 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
3532 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
3533 Germany.</p>
3534
3535 <p>For information about our school project you can read
3536 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
3537 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
3538
3539 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3540 Edu?</strong></p>
3541
3542 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
3543 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
3544
3545 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
3546 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
3547 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
3548 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
3549 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
3550 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
3551 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
3552 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
3553 teachers, parents...</p>
3554
3555 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3556 Edu?</strong></p>
3557
3558 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
3559 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
3560
3561 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
3562 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
3563 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
3564 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
3565 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
3566
3567 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
3568 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
3569 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
3570 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
3571 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
3572 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
3573 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
3574
3575 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3576
3577 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
3578 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
3579 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
3580 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
3581
3582 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3583 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3584
3585 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
3586 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
3587 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
3588 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
3589 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
3590
3591 <ul>
3592
3593 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
3594 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
3595 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
3596
3597 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
3598 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
3599 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
3600 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
3601 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
3602 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
3603 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
3604
3605 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
3606 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
3607 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
3608 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
3609
3610 </ul>
3611
3612       </div>
3613       <div class="tags">
3614
3615
3616         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>.
3617
3618
3619       </div>
3620     </div>
3621     <div class="padding"></div>
3622
3623     <div class="entry">
3624       <div class="title">
3625         <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>
3626       </div>
3627       <div class="date">
3628          4th November 2012
3629       </div>
3630       <div class="body">
3631         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
3632 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
3633 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
3634 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
3635 see how a member of the bitcoin community
3636 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
3637 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
3638 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
3639 competition.  My thoughts go to the
3640 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
3641 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
3642 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
3643 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
3644 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
3645
3646 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
3647 that the community already seem to have
3648 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
3649 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
3650 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
3651 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
3652 wealth is available.</p>
3653
3654       </div>
3655       <div class="tags">
3656
3657
3658         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>.
3659
3660
3661       </div>
3662     </div>
3663     <div class="padding"></div>
3664
3665     <div class="entry">
3666       <div class="title">
3667         <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>
3668       </div>
3669       <div class="date">
3670         26th October 2012
3671       </div>
3672       <div class="body">
3673         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
3674 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
3675 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
3676 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
3677 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
3678 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
3679 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
3680 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
3681 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
3682 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
3683 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
3684 it every time.</p>
3685
3686 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
3687 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
3688 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
3689 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
3690 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
3691 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
3692 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
3693 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
3694 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
3695 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
3696 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
3697 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
3698
3699 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
3700 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
3701 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
3702 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
3703 article: First the unplanned outage:
3704
3705 <blockquote><pre>
3706 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
3707 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
3708 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
3709 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
3710 Duration:    40 minutes
3711 Scope:       Exchange 2003
3712 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
3713              a cluster failover.
3714
3715 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
3716              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
3717 Technician:  [xxx]
3718 </pre></blockquote>
3719
3720 Next the planned outage:
3721
3722 <blockquote><pre>
3723 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
3724 Severity:    Major (Planned)
3725 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
3726 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
3727 Duration:    10 hours
3728 Scope:       H2 Transport
3729 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
3730              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
3731              4510s.
3732 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
3733              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
3734              connectivity.
3735 Technician:  [xxx]
3736 </pre></blockquote>
3737
3738 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
3739 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
3740 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
3741 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
3742 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
3743 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
3744 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
3745
3746 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
3747 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
3748 university too.  We do register
3749 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
3750 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
3751 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
3752 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
3753 for other sites to consider too?</p>
3754
3755       </div>
3756       <div class="tags">
3757
3758
3759         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>.
3760
3761
3762       </div>
3763     </div>
3764     <div class="padding"></div>
3765
3766     <div class="entry">
3767       <div class="title">
3768         <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>
3769       </div>
3770       <div class="date">
3771         22nd October 2012
3772       </div>
3773       <div class="body">
3774         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
3775 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
3776 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
3777 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
3778 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
3779 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
3780 background information is available in Norwegian from
3781 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
3782 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
3783 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
3784 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
3785 willing to
3786 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
3787 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
3788 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
3789 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
3790 sounded like
3791 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
3792 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
3793 later.</p>
3794
3795 <p>And thought this action is
3796 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
3797 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
3798 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
3799 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
3800 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
3801 rights.</p>
3802
3803 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
3804 unacceptable terms.  For example
3805 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
3806 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
3807 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
3808 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
3809 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
3810
3811 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
3812 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
3813 restored the account of the user, as reported by
3814 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
3815 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
3816 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
3817 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
3818 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
3819 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
3820 reading two opinions from
3821 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
3822 Phipps</a> and
3823 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
3824 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
3825 details about the original story.</p>
3826
3827       </div>
3828       <div class="tags">
3829
3830
3831         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>.
3832
3833
3834       </div>
3835     </div>
3836     <div class="padding"></div>
3837
3838     <div class="entry">
3839       <div class="title">
3840         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
3841       </div>
3842       <div class="date">
3843         18th October 2012
3844       </div>
3845       <div class="body">
3846         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
3847 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
3848 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
3849 across a marvellous drawing by
3850 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
3851 visualising some of what is going on.
3852
3853 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
3854 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
3855
3856 <blockquote>
3857 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
3858 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
3859 </blockquote>
3860
3861 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
3862 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
3863 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
3864 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
3865 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
3866 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
3867
3868       </div>
3869       <div class="tags">
3870
3871
3872         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>.
3873
3874
3875       </div>
3876     </div>
3877     <div class="padding"></div>
3878
3879     <div class="entry">
3880       <div class="title">
3881         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
3882       </div>
3883       <div class="date">
3884         12th October 2012
3885       </div>
3886       <div class="body">
3887         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
3888 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
3889 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
3890 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
3891 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
3892 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
3893 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
3894 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
3895 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
3896 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
3897 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
3898 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
3899 matter".</p>
3900
3901 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
3902 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
3903 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
3904 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
3905 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
3906 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
3907 to argue its side.</p>
3908
3909 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
3910 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
3911 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
3912 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
3913
3914 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
3915 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
3916 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
3917
3918       </div>
3919       <div class="tags">
3920
3921
3922         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>.
3923
3924
3925       </div>
3926     </div>
3927     <div class="padding"></div>
3928
3929     <div class="entry">
3930       <div class="title">
3931         <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>
3932       </div>
3933       <div class="date">
3934          3rd October 2012
3935       </div>
3936       <div class="body">
3937         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
3938 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
3939 the computer science book collection available in his local
3940 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
3941 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
3942 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
3943 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
3944 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
3945 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
3946 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
3947 recently published books.</p>
3948
3949 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
3950 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
3951 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
3952 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
3953 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
3954 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
3955 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
3956 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
3957 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
3958 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
3959 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
3960 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
3961 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
3962 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
3963 for the library that evening.</p>
3964
3965 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
3966 going to know that for example
3967 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
3968 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
3969 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
3970 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
3971 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
3972 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
3973 book right away.</p>
3974
3975       </div>
3976       <div class="tags">
3977
3978
3979         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3980
3981
3982       </div>
3983     </div>
3984     <div class="padding"></div>
3985
3986     <div class="entry">
3987       <div class="title">
3988         <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>
3989       </div>
3990       <div class="date">
3991         23rd September 2012
3992       </div>
3993       <div class="body">
3994         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
3995 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
3996 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
3997 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
3998 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
3999 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
4000
4001 When I started, I
4002 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
4003 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
4004 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
4005 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
4006 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
4007 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
4008 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
4009
4010 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
4011
4012 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
4013 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
4014 the project files currently available from
4015 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
4016
4017 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
4018 the updated
4019 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
4020 and
4021 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
4022 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
4023 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
4024 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
4025
4026       </div>
4027       <div class="tags">
4028
4029
4030         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>.
4031
4032
4033       </div>
4034     </div>
4035     <div class="padding"></div>
4036
4037     <div class="entry">
4038       <div class="title">
4039         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
4040       </div>
4041       <div class="date">
4042         17th September 2012
4043       </div>
4044       <div class="body">
4045         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
4046 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
4047 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
4048 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
4049 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
4050 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
4051 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
4052
4053 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4054
4055 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
4056 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
4057 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
4058 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
4059 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
4060 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
4061 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
4062 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
4063 training is anyway very important</p>
4064
4065 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
4066 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
4067 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
4068 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
4069 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
4070
4071 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4072 project?</strong></p>
4073
4074 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
4075 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
4076 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
4077 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
4078 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
4079 hole.</p>
4080
4081 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4082 Edu?</strong></p>
4083
4084 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
4085 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
4086 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
4087 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
4088 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
4089 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
4090 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
4091 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
4092 hassle.</p>
4093
4094 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4095 Edu?</strong></p>
4096
4097 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
4098 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
4099 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
4100 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
4101 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
4102 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
4103 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
4104 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
4105
4106 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4107
4108 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
4109 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
4110 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
4111 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
4112 has the same...</p>
4113
4114 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
4115 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
4116 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
4117 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
4118
4119 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4120 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4121
4122 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
4123 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
4124 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
4125
4126 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
4127 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
4128 don't.</p>
4129
4130 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
4131 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
4132 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
4133 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
4134 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
4135 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
4136 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
4137
4138       </div>
4139       <div class="tags">
4140
4141
4142         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>.
4143
4144
4145       </div>
4146     </div>
4147     <div class="padding"></div>
4148
4149     <div class="entry">
4150       <div class="title">
4151         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
4152       </div>
4153       <div class="date">
4154         15th September 2012
4155       </div>
4156       <div class="body">
4157         <p>After the
4158 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
4159 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
4160 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
4161 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
4162 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
4163 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
4164 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
4165 was
4166 <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
4167 formal working group should be formed.</p>
4168
4169 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
4170 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
4171 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
4172 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
4173 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
4174 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
4175 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
4176 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
4177
4178 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
4179 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
4180 IETF.</p>
4181
4182       </div>
4183       <div class="tags">
4184
4185
4186         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>.
4187
4188
4189       </div>
4190     </div>
4191     <div class="padding"></div>
4192
4193     <div class="entry">
4194       <div class="title">
4195         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
4196       </div>
4197       <div class="date">
4198         12th September 2012
4199       </div>
4200       <div class="body">
4201         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
4202 publication of of
4203 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
4204 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
4205 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
4206 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
4207 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
4208 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
4209 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
4210 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
4211 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
4212 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
4213
4214 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
4215 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
4216 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
4217 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
4218
4219 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
4220 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
4221
4222       </div>
4223       <div class="tags">
4224
4225
4226         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>.
4227
4228
4229       </div>
4230     </div>
4231     <div class="padding"></div>
4232
4233     <div class="entry">
4234       <div class="title">
4235         <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>
4236       </div>
4237       <div class="date">
4238          7th September 2012
4239       </div>
4240       <div class="body">
4241         <p>As I
4242 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
4243 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
4244 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
4245 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
4246 repository for the project</a>.</p>
4247
4248 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
4249 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
4250 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
4251 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
4252
4253 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
4254 PostScript formats at
4255 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
4256 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
4257
4258       </div>
4259       <div class="tags">
4260
4261
4262         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>.
4263
4264
4265       </div>
4266     </div>
4267     <div class="padding"></div>
4268
4269     <div class="entry">
4270       <div class="title">
4271         <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>
4272       </div>
4273       <div class="date">
4274         23rd August 2012
4275       </div>
4276       <div class="body">
4277         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
4278 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
4279 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
4280 revisit the great site
4281 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
4282 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
4283 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
4284
4285       </div>
4286       <div class="tags">
4287
4288
4289         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>.
4290
4291
4292       </div>
4293     </div>
4294     <div class="padding"></div>
4295
4296     <div class="entry">
4297       <div class="title">
4298         <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>
4299       </div>
4300       <div class="date">
4301         17th August 2012
4302       </div>
4303       <div class="body">
4304         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
4305 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
4306 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
4307 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
4308 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
4309 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
4310 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
4311 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
4312 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
4313 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
4314 summer I
4315 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
4316 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
4317 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
4318
4319 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
4320 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
4321 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
4322 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
4323 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
4324 progress:</p>
4325
4326 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
4327
4328 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
4329 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
4330 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
4331 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
4332 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
4333 english version of the docbook source.</p>
4334
4335 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
4336 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
4337 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
4338 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
4339 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
4340 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
4341 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
4342 project files currently available from <a
4343 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
4344
4345 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
4346 the updated
4347 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
4348 and
4349 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
4350 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
4351 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
4352 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
4353
4354       </div>
4355       <div class="tags">
4356
4357
4358         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>.
4359
4360
4361       </div>
4362     </div>
4363     <div class="padding"></div>
4364
4365     <div class="entry">
4366       <div class="title">
4367         <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>
4368       </div>
4369       <div class="date">
4370         10th August 2012
4371       </div>
4372       <div class="body">
4373         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
4374 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
4375 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
4376 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
4377 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
4378 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
4379 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
4380 case for the language
4381 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
4382 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
4383
4384 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
4385 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
4386 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
4387 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
4388 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
4389
4390 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
4391 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
4392 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
4393 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
4394 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
4395 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
4396 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
4397 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
4398 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
4399 alias for 'nb'.</p>
4400
4401 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
4402 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
4403 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
4404 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
4405 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
4406 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
4407 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
4408 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
4409 at the same time. :(</p>
4410
4411 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
4412 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
4413 processors. :(</p>
4414
4415 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
4416
4417       </div>
4418       <div class="tags">
4419
4420
4421         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>.
4422
4423
4424       </div>
4425     </div>
4426     <div class="padding"></div>
4427
4428     <div class="entry">
4429       <div class="title">
4430         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
4431       </div>
4432       <div class="date">
4433         31st July 2012
4434       </div>
4435       <div class="body">
4436         <p>I tried to send this text to the
4437 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
4438 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
4439 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
4440 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
4441 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
4442 out.</p>
4443
4444 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
4445 learning curve at the moment.</p>
4446
4447 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
4448 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
4449 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
4450 available from
4451 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
4452 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
4453 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
4454 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
4455 Squeeze.</p>
4456
4457 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
4458 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
4459 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
4460 problems.</p>
4461
4462 <ul>
4463
4464 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
4465    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
4466    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
4467    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
4468    index references spanning several pages (See
4469    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
4470    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
4471    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
4472
4473 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
4474    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
4475    #683163</a>).</li>
4476
4477 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
4478    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
4479    footnote and text body, see
4480    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
4481    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
4482    refs listed are not right).</li>
4483
4484 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
4485
4486 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
4487    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
4488
4489 </ul>
4490
4491 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
4492 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
4493 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
4494
4495 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
4496
4497       </div>
4498       <div class="tags">
4499
4500
4501         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>.
4502
4503
4504       </div>
4505     </div>
4506     <div class="padding"></div>
4507
4508     <div class="entry">
4509       <div class="title">
4510         <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>
4511       </div>
4512       <div class="date">
4513         21st July 2012
4514       </div>
4515       <div class="body">
4516         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
4517 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
4518 norwegian version</a> of the book
4519 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
4520 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
4521 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
4522 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
4523 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
4524
4525 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
4526 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
4527 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
4528 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
4529 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
4530 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
4531 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
4532 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
4533 print. :)</p>
4534
4535 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
4536 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
4537 language.</p>
4538
4539       </div>
4540       <div class="tags">
4541
4542
4543         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>.
4544
4545
4546       </div>
4547     </div>
4548     <div class="padding"></div>
4549
4550     <div class="entry">
4551       <div class="title">
4552         <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>
4553       </div>
4554       <div class="date">
4555         16th July 2012
4556       </div>
4557       <div class="body">
4558         <p>I am currently working on a
4559 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
4560 to translate</a> the book
4561 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
4562 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
4563 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
4564 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
4565 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
4566 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
4567 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
4568
4569 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
4570 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
4571 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
4572 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
4573 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
4574 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
4575 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
4576 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
4577 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
4578
4579       </div>
4580       <div class="tags">
4581
4582
4583         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>.
4584
4585
4586       </div>
4587     </div>
4588     <div class="padding"></div>
4589
4590     <div class="entry">
4591       <div class="title">
4592         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
4593       </div>
4594       <div class="date">
4595          9th July 2012
4596       </div>
4597       <div class="body">
4598         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
4599 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
4600 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
4601 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
4602 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
4603 to adjust and scale the just released
4604 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
4605 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
4606 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
4607
4608 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4609
4610 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
4611 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
4612 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
4613 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
4614 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
4615 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
4616 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
4617 perspective when working with IT.</p>
4618
4619 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4620 project?</strong></p>
4621
4622 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
4623 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
4624 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
4625 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
4626 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
4627 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
4628
4629 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4630 Edu?</strong></p>
4631
4632 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
4633 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
4634 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
4635 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
4636 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
4637 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
4638 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
4639 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
4640 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
4641 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
4642 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
4643 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
4644 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
4645 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
4646 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
4647 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
4648 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
4649 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
4650 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
4651 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
4652 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
4653 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
4654 quicker to update.
4655
4656 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4657 Edu?</strong></p>
4658
4659 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
4660 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
4661 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
4662 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
4663 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
4664 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
4665
4666 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
4667 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
4668 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
4669 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
4670 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
4671 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
4672 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
4673 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
4674 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
4675 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
4676 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
4677 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
4678 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
4679 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
4680 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
4681
4682 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
4683 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
4684 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
4685 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
4686 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
4687 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
4688 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
4689 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
4690
4691 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
4692 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
4693 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
4694 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
4695 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
4696 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
4697 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
4698 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
4699 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
4700 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
4701 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
4702 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
4703 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
4704 sound file.</p>
4705
4706 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
4707 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
4708 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
4709 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
4710 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
4711 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
4712 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
4713 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
4714 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
4715
4716 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4717
4718 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
4719 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
4720 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
4721 )</p>
4722
4723 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4724 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4725
4726 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
4727 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
4728 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
4729 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
4730 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
4731 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
4732 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
4733 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
4734 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
4735 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
4736 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
4737 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
4738 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
4739 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
4740 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
4741
4742 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
4743 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
4744 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
4745 management with Airtime</a>,
4746 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
4747 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
4748 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
4749 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
4750 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
4751
4752       </div>
4753       <div class="tags">
4754
4755
4756         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>.
4757
4758
4759       </div>
4760     </div>
4761     <div class="padding"></div>
4762
4763     <div class="entry">
4764       <div class="title">
4765         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
4766       </div>
4767       <div class="date">
4768          8th July 2012
4769       </div>
4770       <div class="body">
4771         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
4772 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
4773 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
4774 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
4775 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
4776 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
4777 Steinberg in his blog post
4778 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
4779 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
4780 spending of your tax money.</p>
4781
4782 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
4783 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
4784 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
4785 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
4786 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
4787 purchases.</p>
4788
4789       </div>
4790       <div class="tags">
4791
4792
4793         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>.
4794
4795
4796       </div>
4797     </div>
4798     <div class="padding"></div>
4799
4800     <div class="entry">
4801       <div class="title">
4802         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
4803       </div>
4804       <div class="date">
4805          7th July 2012
4806       </div>
4807       <div class="body">
4808         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
4809 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
4810 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
4811 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
4812 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
4813 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
4814 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
4815 receive.  The software is
4816
4817 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
4818 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
4819 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
4820 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
4821 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
4822 Windows</a>.</p>
4823
4824 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
4825 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
4826
4827 <p><ul>
4828
4829   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
4830     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
4831
4832   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
4833     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
4834     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
4835     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
4836     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
4837     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
4838     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
4839     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
4840     </li>
4841
4842   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
4843     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
4844
4845   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
4846     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
4847
4848   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
4849     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
4850
4851   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
4852
4853   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
4854     formats </li>
4855
4856   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
4857     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
4858     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
4859     (as separate sets)</li>
4860
4861   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
4862     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
4863     percentage)</li>
4864
4865   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
4866     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
4867     memory):
4868     <ul>
4869       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
4870       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
4871       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
4872       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
4873       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
4874       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
4875       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
4876       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
4877       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
4878       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
4879           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
4880           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
4881           activity)</li>
4882       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
4883       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
4884     </ul></li>
4885
4886   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
4887     <ul>
4888       <li>Break periods</li>
4889       <li>For teacher(s):
4890         <ul>
4891           <li>Not available periods</li>
4892           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
4893           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
4894           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
4895           <li>Min hours daily</li>
4896           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
4897
4898           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
4899             days per week</li>
4900         </ul></li>
4901       <li>For students (sets):
4902         <ul>
4903           <li>Not available periods</li>
4904           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
4905           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
4906           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
4907           <li>Min hours daily</li>
4908           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
4909
4910           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
4911             days per week</li>
4912         </ul></li>
4913       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
4914         <ul>
4915           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
4916           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
4917           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
4918           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
4919           <li>End(s) students day</li>
4920           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
4921           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
4922             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
4923           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
4924           <li>Not overlapping</li>
4925           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
4926           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
4927         </ul></li>
4928     </ul></li>
4929
4930   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
4931     <ul>
4932       <li>Room not available periods</li>
4933       <li>For teacher(s):
4934         <ul>
4935           <li>Home room(s)</li>
4936           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
4937           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
4938         </ul>
4939       </li>
4940
4941       <li>For students (sets):
4942         <ul>
4943           <li>Home room(s)</li>
4944           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
4945           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
4946         </ul>
4947       </li>
4948       <li>Preferred room(s):
4949         <ul>
4950           <li>For a subject</li>
4951           <li>For an activity tag</li>
4952           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
4953           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
4954         </ul>
4955       </li>
4956
4957       <li>For a set of activities:
4958         <ul>
4959           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
4960         </ul>
4961       </li>
4962     </ul>
4963   </li>
4964 </ul></p>
4965
4966 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
4967 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
4968 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
4969 manually, check it out.
4970
4971 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
4972 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
4973 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
4974 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
4975 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
4976 section</a>.</p>
4977
4978       </div>
4979       <div class="tags">
4980
4981
4982         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>.
4983
4984
4985       </div>
4986     </div>
4987     <div class="padding"></div>
4988
4989     <div class="entry">
4990       <div class="title">
4991         <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>
4992       </div>
4993       <div class="date">
4994          3rd July 2012
4995       </div>
4996       <div class="body">
4997         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
4998 project (Norwegian version of
4999 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
5000 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
5001 a problem with the municipalities using
5002 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
5003 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
5004 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
5005 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
5006 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
5007 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
5008 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
5009 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
5010 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
5011 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
5012 the From: header.</p>
5013
5014 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
5015 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
5016 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
5017 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
5018 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
5019 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
5020 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
5021 behaviour.</p>
5022
5023 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
5024 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
5025 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
5026 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
5027 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
5028 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
5029 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
5030
5031       </div>
5032       <div class="tags">
5033
5034
5035         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>.
5036
5037
5038       </div>
5039     </div>
5040     <div class="padding"></div>
5041
5042     <div class="entry">
5043       <div class="title">
5044         <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>
5045       </div>
5046       <div class="date">
5047         26th June 2012
5048       </div>
5049       <div class="body">
5050         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
5051 another interview with the people behind
5052 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
5053 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
5054 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
5055 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
5056 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
5057 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
5058 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
5059
5060 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5061
5062 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
5063 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
5064 ICT in schools</p>
5065
5066 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
5067 project?</strong></p>
5068
5069 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
5070 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
5071 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
5072 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
5073
5074 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5075 Edu?</strong></p>
5076
5077 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
5078 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
5079 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
5080 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
5081
5082 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5083 Edu?</strong></p>
5084
5085 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
5086 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
5087 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
5088 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
5089 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
5090 technologies in school.</p>
5091
5092 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5093
5094 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
5095 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
5096 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
5097
5098 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5099 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5100
5101 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
5102 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
5103 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
5104 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
5105
5106 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
5107 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
5108 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
5109
5110 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
5111 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
5112 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
5113 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
5114 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
5115 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
5116 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
5117 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
5118 working there.</p>
5119
5120       </div>
5121       <div class="tags">
5122
5123
5124         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>.
5125
5126
5127       </div>
5128     </div>
5129     <div class="padding"></div>
5130
5131     <div class="entry">
5132       <div class="title">
5133         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
5134       </div>
5135       <div class="date">
5136         24th June 2012
5137       </div>
5138       <div class="body">
5139         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
5140 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
5141 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
5142 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
5143 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
5144 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
5145 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
5146 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
5147 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
5148 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
5149 missing in my book.</p>
5150
5151 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
5152 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
5153 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
5154 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
5155 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
5156 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
5157 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
5158
5159       </div>
5160       <div class="tags">
5161
5162
5163         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>.
5164
5165
5166       </div>
5167     </div>
5168     <div class="padding"></div>
5169
5170     <div class="entry">
5171       <div class="title">
5172         <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>
5173       </div>
5174       <div class="date">
5175         11th June 2012
5176       </div>
5177       <div class="body">
5178         <p>During my work on
5179 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
5180 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
5181 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
5182 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
5183 explanation.</p>
5184
5185 <p><ul>
5186
5187 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
5188 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
5189 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
5190 system depend on tasksel tasks in
5191 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
5192 installation.</li>
5193
5194 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
5195 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
5196 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
5197 at least try to enable it for these services:
5198 <ul>
5199
5200   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
5201     quotas.</li>
5202   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
5203   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
5204   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
5205   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
5206   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
5207
5208 </ul></li>
5209
5210 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
5211 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
5212 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
5213 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
5214
5215 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
5216 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
5217 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
5218
5219 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
5220 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
5221 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
5222 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
5223 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
5224 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
5225
5226 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
5227 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
5228 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
5229 in Wheezy.
5230
5231 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
5232 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
5233 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
5234
5235 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
5236 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
5237 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
5238 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
5239
5240 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
5241 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
5242 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
5243 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
5244
5245 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
5246 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
5247 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
5248
5249 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
5250 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
5251 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
5252
5253 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
5254 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
5255 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
5256 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
5257 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
5258
5259 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
5260 <ul>
5261
5262 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
5263 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
5264 <li>and probably more?</li>
5265 </ul></li>
5266
5267 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
5268 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
5269 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
5270 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
5271 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
5272 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
5273 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
5274 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
5275
5276
5277 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
5278 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
5279 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
5280 use.</li>
5281
5282 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
5283 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
5284 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
5285 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
5286 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
5287
5288 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
5289 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
5290 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
5291 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
5292 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
5293 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
5294
5295 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
5296 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
5297 There are at least three implementations,
5298 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
5299 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
5300 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
5301 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
5302 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
5303 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
5304 given room.</li>
5305
5306 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
5307 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
5308 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
5309 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
5310 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
5311 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
5312 investigated.</li>
5313
5314 </ul></p>
5315
5316 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
5317 version.</p>
5318
5319       </div>
5320       <div class="tags">
5321
5322
5323         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>.
5324
5325
5326       </div>
5327     </div>
5328     <div class="padding"></div>
5329
5330     <div class="entry">
5331       <div class="title">
5332         <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>
5333       </div>
5334       <div class="date">
5335          9th June 2012
5336       </div>
5337       <div class="body">
5338         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
5339 <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
5340 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
5341 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
5342 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
5343 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
5344 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
5345 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
5346 be willing to pay for.</p>
5347
5348 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
5349 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
5350 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
5351 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
5352 Orwell</a>.</p>
5353
5354       </div>
5355       <div class="tags">
5356
5357
5358         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>.
5359
5360
5361       </div>
5362     </div>
5363     <div class="padding"></div>
5364
5365     <div class="entry">
5366       <div class="title">
5367         <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>
5368       </div>
5369       <div class="date">
5370          6th June 2012
5371       </div>
5372       <div class="body">
5373         <p>A few days ago
5374 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
5375 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
5376 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
5377 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
5378 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
5379 code for HP, Dell and IBM
5380 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
5381 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
5382 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
5383 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
5384 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
5385
5386 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
5387 output:
5388
5389 <blockquote><pre>
5390 % 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>
5391 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": ""})
5392 %
5393 </pre></blockquote>
5394
5395 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
5396 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
5397 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
5398
5399       </div>
5400       <div class="tags">
5401
5402
5403         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>.
5404
5405
5406       </div>
5407     </div>
5408     <div class="padding"></div>
5409
5410     <div class="entry">
5411       <div class="title">
5412         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
5413       </div>
5414       <div class="date">
5415          2nd June 2012
5416       </div>
5417       <div class="body">
5418         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
5419 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
5420 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
5421 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
5422 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
5423 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
5424
5425 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5426
5427 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
5428 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
5429 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
5430 by Angela).</p>
5431
5432 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
5433 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
5434 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
5435 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
5436 becoming an osteopath.</p>
5437
5438 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
5439 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
5440 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
5441 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
5442 skills with communication skills.</p>
5443
5444 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
5445 project?</strong></p>
5446
5447 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
5448 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
5449 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
5450 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
5451 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
5452
5453 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
5454 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
5455 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
5456 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
5457 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
5458 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
5459 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
5460 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
5461 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
5462
5463 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
5464 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
5465 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
5466
5467 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
5468
5469 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
5470 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
5471 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
5472 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
5473 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
5474 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
5475 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
5476 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
5477 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
5478 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
5479 point.</p>
5480
5481 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
5482 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
5483 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
5484 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
5485 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
5486 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
5487
5488 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
5489 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
5490 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
5491 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
5492 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
5493 spare time.</p>
5494
5495 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
5496 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
5497 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
5498 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
5499 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
5500
5501 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
5502 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
5503 avoidance do exist.</p>
5504
5505 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
5506 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
5507 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
5508 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
5509 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
5510 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
5511 and probably a gain for all.</p>
5512
5513 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5514 Edu?</strong></p>
5515
5516 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
5517 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
5518 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
5519 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
5520 project communication, honest communication within the group of
5521 developers, etc.</p>
5522
5523 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5524 Edu?</strong></p>
5525
5526 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
5527
5528 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
5529 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
5530 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
5531 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
5532 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
5533 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
5534 contribute).</p>
5535
5536 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
5537 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
5538 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
5539 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
5540 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
5541 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
5542 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
5543 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
5544 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
5545 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
5546
5547 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5548
5549 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
5550
5551 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
5552 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
5553 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
5554
5555 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
5556 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
5557 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
5558 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
5559
5560 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
5561 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
5562 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
5563 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
5564 whiteboard.</p>
5565
5566 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
5567
5568 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5569 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5570
5571 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
5572 enrol people.</p>
5573
5574       </div>
5575       <div class="tags">
5576
5577
5578         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>.
5579
5580
5581       </div>
5582     </div>
5583     <div class="padding"></div>
5584
5585     <div class="entry">
5586       <div class="title">
5587         <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>
5588       </div>
5589       <div class="date">
5590          1st June 2012
5591       </div>
5592       <div class="body">
5593         <p>A few years ago I wrote
5594 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
5595 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
5596 I have learned from colleges here at the
5597 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
5598 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
5599 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
5600 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
5601 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
5602
5603 <p><pre>
5604 use strict;
5605 use warnings;
5606 use SOAP::Lite;
5607 use Data::Dumper;
5608 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
5609 my $App = 'test';
5610 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
5611 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
5612 my $s = SOAP::Lite
5613     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
5614     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
5615     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
5616     ;
5617 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
5618     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
5619     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
5620     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
5621 );
5622 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
5623 </pre></p>
5624
5625 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
5626
5627 <p><pre>
5628 $VAR1 = {
5629           'Asset' => {
5630                      'Entitlements' => {
5631                                        'EntitlementData' => [
5632                                                             {
5633                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
5634                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
5635                                                               'Provider' => '',
5636                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
5637                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
5638                                                             },
5639                                                             {
5640                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
5641                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
5642                                                               'Provider' => '',
5643                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
5644                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
5645                                                             },
5646                                                             {
5647                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
5648                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
5649                                                               'Provider' => '',
5650                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
5651                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
5652                                                             }
5653                                                           ]
5654                                      },
5655                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
5656                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
5657                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
5658                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
5659                                           'Buid' => '2323',
5660                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
5661                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
5662                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
5663                                         }
5664                    }
5665         };
5666 </pre></p>
5667
5668 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
5669 service outside the
5670 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
5671 documentation</a>, and according to
5672 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
5673 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
5674 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
5675
5676 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
5677 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
5678
5679       </div>
5680       <div class="tags">
5681
5682
5683         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>.
5684
5685
5686       </div>
5687     </div>
5688     <div class="padding"></div>
5689
5690     <div class="entry">
5691       <div class="title">
5692         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
5693       </div>
5694       <div class="date">
5695         31st May 2012
5696       </div>
5697       <div class="body">
5698         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
5699 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
5700 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
5701 running Debian Squeeze, where
5702 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
5703 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
5704 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
5705 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
5706 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
5707 another day.</p>
5708
5709 <p>After calibration, I get a
5710 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
5711 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
5712 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
5713 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
5714 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
5715 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
5716 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
5717 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
5718 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
5719 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
5720 and a simple</p>
5721
5722 <p><pre>
5723 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
5724 </pre></p>
5725
5726 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
5727 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
5728 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
5729 enough for now.</p>
5730
5731       </div>
5732       <div class="tags">
5733
5734
5735         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5736
5737
5738       </div>
5739     </div>
5740     <div class="padding"></div>
5741
5742     <div class="entry">
5743       <div class="title">
5744         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
5745       </div>
5746       <div class="date">
5747         27th May 2012
5748       </div>
5749       <div class="body">
5750         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
5751 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
5752 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
5753 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
5754 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
5755 since then, helping to make sure the
5756 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
5757 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
5758
5759 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5760
5761 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
5762 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
5763 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
5764 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
5765 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
5766 our computer network.</p>
5767
5768 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
5769 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
5770 (4 months).</p>
5771
5772 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
5773 project?</strong></p>
5774
5775 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
5776 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
5777 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
5778 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
5779 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
5780 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
5781 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
5782 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
5783 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
5784 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
5785 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
5786 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
5787 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
5788 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
5789
5790 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5791 Edu?</strong></p>
5792
5793 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
5794 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
5795 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
5796 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
5797 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
5798 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
5799 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
5800 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
5801
5802 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5803 Edu?</strong></p>
5804
5805 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
5806 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
5807 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
5808 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
5809 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
5810 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
5811 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
5812 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
5813 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
5814 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
5815 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
5816 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
5817
5818 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5819
5820 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
5821 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
5822 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
5823
5824 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5825 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5826
5827 <p><ol>
5828
5829 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
5830 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
5831 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
5832 developing.</li>
5833
5834 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
5835 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
5836 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
5837 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
5838 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
5839
5840 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
5841 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
5842 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
5843
5844 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
5845 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
5846 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
5847 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
5848
5849 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
5850 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
5851 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
5852
5853 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
5854
5855 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
5856 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
5857 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
5858 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
5859
5860 </ol></p>
5861
5862       </div>
5863       <div class="tags">
5864
5865
5866         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>.
5867
5868
5869       </div>
5870     </div>
5871     <div class="padding"></div>
5872
5873     <div class="entry">
5874       <div class="title">
5875         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
5876       </div>
5877       <div class="date">
5878         26th May 2012
5879       </div>
5880       <div class="body">
5881         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
5882 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
5883 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
5884 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
5885 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
5886
5887 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
5888 <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>
5889 comment:</p>
5890
5891 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
5892 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
5893 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
5894 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
5895 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
5896 </blockquote></p>
5897
5898 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
5899 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
5900 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
5901 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
5902 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
5903 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
5904 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
5905 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
5906 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
5907 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
5908 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
5909 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
5910 of wasted effort.</p>
5911
5912 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
5913 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
5914 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
5915
5916 <p>See
5917 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
5918 and
5919 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
5920 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
5921 </blockquote></p>
5922
5923       </div>
5924       <div class="tags">
5925
5926
5927         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>.
5928
5929
5930       </div>
5931     </div>
5932     <div class="padding"></div>
5933
5934     <div class="entry">
5935       <div class="title">
5936         <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>
5937       </div>
5938       <div class="date">
5939         18th May 2012
5940       </div>
5941       <div class="body">
5942         <p>In january, I
5943 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
5944 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
5945 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
5946 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
5947 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
5948 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
5949 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
5950 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
5951 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
5952 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
5953
5954 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
5955 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
5956 drivers. :)</p>
5957
5958       </div>
5959       <div class="tags">
5960
5961
5962         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5963
5964
5965       </div>
5966     </div>
5967     <div class="padding"></div>
5968
5969     <div class="entry">
5970       <div class="title">
5971         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
5972       </div>
5973       <div class="date">
5974         13th May 2012
5975       </div>
5976       <div class="body">
5977         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
5978 publish another interview with the people behind
5979 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
5980 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
5981 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
5982 details get right before release.
5983
5984 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5985
5986 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
5987 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
5988 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
5989 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
5990 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
5991 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
5992 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
5993 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
5994
5995 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
5996 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
5997 home since 2006.</p>
5998
5999 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
6000 project?</strong></p>
6001
6002 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
6003 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
6004 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
6005 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
6006 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
6007 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
6008
6009 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
6010 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
6011 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
6012 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
6013 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
6014 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
6015 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
6016 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
6017 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
6018 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
6019 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
6020 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
6021 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
6022 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
6023 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
6024 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
6025
6026 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6027 Edu?</strong></p>
6028
6029 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
6030 for me as today.</p>
6031
6032 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
6033
6034 <p><ul>
6035
6036 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
6037 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
6038
6039 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
6040 cost.</li>
6041
6042 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
6043 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
6044 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
6045 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
6046 server</li>
6047
6048 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
6049 school.</li>
6050
6051 </ul></p>
6052
6053 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
6054 came up in this way:</p>
6055
6056 <p><ul>
6057
6058 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
6059 now.</li>
6060
6061 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
6062 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
6063 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
6064
6065 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
6066 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
6067 interfaces used in the past.</li>
6068
6069 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
6070 different needs.</li>
6071
6072 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
6073
6074 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
6075 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
6076 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
6077
6078 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
6079 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
6080
6081 </ul></p>
6082
6083 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6084 Edu?</strong></p>
6085
6086 <p><ul>
6087
6088 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
6089 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
6090 whole municipality areas.</li>
6091
6092 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
6093 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
6094 politicians.</li>
6095
6096 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
6097
6098 </ul></p>
6099
6100 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6101
6102 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
6103 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
6104 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
6105 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
6106 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
6107 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
6108
6109 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
6110 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
6111 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
6112 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
6113 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
6114
6115 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6116 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6117
6118 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
6119 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
6120 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
6121
6122       </div>
6123       <div class="tags">
6124
6125
6126         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>.
6127
6128
6129       </div>
6130     </div>
6131     <div class="padding"></div>
6132
6133     <div class="entry">
6134       <div class="title">
6135         <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>
6136       </div>
6137       <div class="date">
6138         30th April 2012
6139       </div>
6140       <div class="body">
6141         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
6142 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
6143
6144 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
6145 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
6146 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
6147 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
6148 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
6149 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
6150 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
6151 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
6152 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
6153 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
6154 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
6155 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
6156 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
6157 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
6158 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
6159 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
6160
6161 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
6162 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
6163 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
6164 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
6165 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
6166 finally found a Danish supplier
6167 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
6168 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
6169 days ago.</p>
6170
6171 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
6172 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
6173 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
6174 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
6175 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
6176 toys.</p>
6177
6178       </div>
6179       <div class="tags">
6180
6181
6182         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6183
6184
6185       </div>
6186     </div>
6187     <div class="padding"></div>
6188
6189     <div class="entry">
6190       <div class="title">
6191         <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>
6192       </div>
6193       <div class="date">
6194         26th April 2012
6195       </div>
6196       <div class="body">
6197         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
6198 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
6199 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
6200 that the video editor application included with
6201 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
6202 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
6203 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
6204
6205 <p><blockquote>
6206 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
6207 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
6208 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
6209 </blockquote></p>
6210
6211 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
6212
6213 <p><blockquote>
6214 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
6215 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
6216 </blockquote></p>
6217
6218 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
6219 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
6220 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
6221 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
6222 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
6223 video.  AMR is
6224 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
6225 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
6226 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
6227 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
6228 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
6229 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
6230 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
6231
6232 <p>I know why I prefer
6233 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
6234 standards</a> also for video.</p>
6235
6236       </div>
6237       <div class="tags">
6238
6239
6240         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>.
6241
6242
6243       </div>
6244     </div>
6245     <div class="padding"></div>
6246
6247     <div class="entry">
6248       <div class="title">
6249         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
6250       </div>
6251       <div class="date">
6252         19th April 2012
6253       </div>
6254       <div class="body">
6255         <p>Here in Norway, the
6256 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
6257 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
6258 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
6259 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
6260 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
6261 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
6262 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
6263 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
6264 on the same level.</p>
6265
6266 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
6267 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
6268 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
6269 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
6270 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
6271 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
6272 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
6273 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
6274 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
6275 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
6276 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
6277 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
6278 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
6279 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
6280 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
6281 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
6282 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
6283 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
6284
6285 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
6286 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
6287 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
6288 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
6289 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
6290 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
6291 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
6292 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
6293
6294 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
6295 from Simon Phipps
6296 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
6297 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
6298
6299 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
6300 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
6301 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
6302 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
6303 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
6304 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
6305 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
6306 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
6307 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
6308
6309       </div>
6310       <div class="tags">
6311
6312
6313         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>.
6314
6315
6316       </div>
6317     </div>
6318     <div class="padding"></div>
6319
6320     <div class="entry">
6321       <div class="title">
6322         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
6323       </div>
6324       <div class="date">
6325         15th April 2012
6326       </div>
6327       <div class="body">
6328         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
6329 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
6330 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
6331 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
6332 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
6333 up in the recently released
6334 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
6335 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
6336
6337 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6338
6339 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
6340 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
6341 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
6342 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
6343 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
6344 information technology and science/technology.</p>
6345
6346 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
6347 project?</strong></p>
6348
6349 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
6350 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
6351 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
6352 contributing.</p>
6353
6354 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6355 Edu?</strong></p>
6356
6357 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
6358 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
6359 Debian Project!</p>
6360
6361 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6362 Edu?</strong></p>
6363
6364 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
6365 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
6366 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
6367 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
6368 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
6369 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
6370 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
6371
6372 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
6373 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
6374
6375 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6376
6377 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
6378 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
6379 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
6380 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
6381
6382 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6383 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6384
6385 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
6386 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
6387 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
6388 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
6389 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
6390 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
6391 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
6392
6393 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
6394 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
6395 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
6396 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
6397 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
6398 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
6399 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
6400 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
6401
6402       </div>
6403       <div class="tags">
6404
6405
6406         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>.
6407
6408
6409       </div>
6410     </div>
6411     <div class="padding"></div>
6412
6413     <div class="entry">
6414       <div class="title">
6415         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
6416       </div>
6417       <div class="date">
6418          8th April 2012
6419       </div>
6420       <div class="body">
6421         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
6422 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
6423 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
6424 contributor to the
6425 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
6426 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
6427
6428 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6429
6430 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
6431 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
6432
6433 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
6434 project?</strong></p>
6435
6436 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
6437 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
6438 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
6439 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
6440 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
6441 "localisation".</p>
6442
6443 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6444 Edu?</strong></p>
6445
6446 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6447 Edu?</strong></p>
6448
6449 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
6450 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
6451 education system.</p>
6452
6453 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
6454 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
6455 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
6456 money on the latest hardware.</p>
6457
6458 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6459
6460 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
6461 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
6462 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
6463
6464 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6465 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6466
6467 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
6468 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
6469 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
6470
6471       </div>
6472       <div class="tags">
6473
6474
6475         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>.
6476
6477
6478       </div>
6479     </div>
6480     <div class="padding"></div>
6481
6482     <div class="entry">
6483       <div class="title">
6484         <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>
6485       </div>
6486       <div class="date">
6487          6th April 2012
6488       </div>
6489       <div class="body">
6490         <p>Recently I have spent time with
6491 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
6492 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
6493 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
6494 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
6495 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
6496 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
6497 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
6498 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
6499
6500 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
6501 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
6502 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
6503 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
6504 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
6505 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
6506 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
6507 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
6508
6509 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
6510 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
6511 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
6512 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
6513 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
6514 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
6515 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
6516 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
6517
6518 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
6519 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
6520 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
6521 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
6522 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
6523 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
6524 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
6525 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
6526 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
6527 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
6528
6529 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
6530 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
6531 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
6532 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
6533
6534 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
6535 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
6536
6537       </div>
6538       <div class="tags">
6539
6540
6541         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>.
6542
6543
6544       </div>
6545     </div>
6546     <div class="padding"></div>
6547
6548     <div class="entry">
6549       <div class="title">
6550         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
6551       </div>
6552       <div class="date">
6553          5th April 2012
6554       </div>
6555       <div class="body">
6556         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
6557 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
6558 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
6559 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
6560 for schools.  Check out his article
6561 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
6562 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
6563
6564       </div>
6565       <div class="tags">
6566
6567
6568         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>.
6569
6570
6571       </div>
6572     </div>
6573     <div class="padding"></div>
6574
6575     <div class="entry">
6576       <div class="title">
6577         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
6578       </div>
6579       <div class="date">
6580          1st April 2012
6581       </div>
6582       <div class="body">
6583         <p>Germany is a core area for the
6584 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
6585 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
6586 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
6587
6588 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6589
6590 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
6591 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
6592 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
6593 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
6594 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
6595 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
6596 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
6597 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
6598
6599 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
6600 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
6601 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
6602 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
6603 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
6604 the end of April this year.</p>
6605
6606 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
6607 project?</strong></p>
6608
6609 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
6610 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
6611 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
6612 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
6613 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
6614 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
6615 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
6616 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
6617 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
6618 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
6619 Skolelinux.</p>
6620
6621 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
6622 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
6623 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
6624 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
6625 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
6626 the admin teachers.</p>
6627
6628 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6629 Edu?</strong></p>
6630
6631 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
6632 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
6633 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
6634
6635 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
6636 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
6637 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
6638 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
6639 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
6640
6641 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6642 Edu?</strong></p>
6643
6644 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
6645
6646 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6647
6648 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
6649 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
6650 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
6651 LibreOffice.</p>
6652
6653 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6654 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6655
6656 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
6657 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
6658 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
6659
6660       </div>
6661       <div class="tags">
6662
6663
6664         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>.
6665
6666
6667       </div>
6668     </div>
6669     <div class="padding"></div>
6670
6671     <div class="entry">
6672       <div class="title">
6673         <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>
6674       </div>
6675       <div class="date">
6676         25th March 2012
6677       </div>
6678       <div class="body">
6679         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
6680
6681 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
6682 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
6683 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
6684 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
6685 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
6686 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
6687 and download as a
6688 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
6689 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
6690
6691 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
6692   <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"' />
6693     <p>Download video as
6694       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
6695 </video></p>
6696
6697       </div>
6698       <div class="tags">
6699
6700
6701         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>.
6702
6703
6704       </div>
6705     </div>
6706     <div class="padding"></div>
6707
6708     <div class="entry">
6709       <div class="title">
6710         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
6711       </div>
6712       <div class="date">
6713         19th March 2012
6714       </div>
6715       <div class="body">
6716         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
6717 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
6718 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
6719 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
6720 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
6721
6722 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6723
6724 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
6725 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
6726 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
6727 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
6728 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
6729 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
6730 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
6731 installations.</p>
6732
6733 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
6734 project?</strong></p>
6735
6736 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
6737 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
6738 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
6739 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
6740 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
6741 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
6742 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
6743 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
6744 these things we decided to try it.</p>
6745
6746 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6747 Edu?</strong></p>
6748
6749 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
6750 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
6751 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
6752 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
6753 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
6754 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
6755 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
6756 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
6757
6758 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6759 Edu?</strong></p>
6760
6761 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
6762 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
6763 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
6764 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
6765 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
6766
6767 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6768
6769 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
6770 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
6771 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
6772 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
6773 that counts...)</p>
6774
6775 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6776 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6777
6778 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
6779 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
6780 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
6781 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
6782 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
6783 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
6784 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
6785 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
6786 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
6787 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
6788 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
6789
6790 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
6791 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
6792 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
6793
6794       </div>
6795       <div class="tags">
6796
6797
6798         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>.
6799
6800
6801       </div>
6802     </div>
6803     <div class="padding"></div>
6804
6805     <div class="entry">
6806       <div class="title">
6807         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
6808       </div>
6809       <div class="date">
6810         16th March 2012
6811       </div>
6812       <div class="body">
6813         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
6814 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
6815 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
6816 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
6817
6818 <ol>
6819
6820 <li>The documentation is written in a
6821 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
6822 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
6823 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
6824 docbook XML.</li>
6825
6826 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
6827 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
6828 with the translated text.</li>
6829
6830 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
6831 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
6832 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
6833 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
6834 images.</li>
6835
6836 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
6837 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
6838
6839 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
6840 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
6841
6842 </ol>
6843
6844 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
6845 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
6846 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
6847 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
6848 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
6849
6850 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
6851 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
6852 package</a>.</p>
6853
6854       </div>
6855       <div class="tags">
6856
6857
6858         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>.
6859
6860
6861       </div>
6862     </div>
6863     <div class="padding"></div>
6864
6865     <div class="entry">
6866       <div class="title">
6867         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
6868       </div>
6869       <div class="date">
6870         11th March 2012
6871       </div>
6872       <div class="body">
6873         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
6874 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
6875 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
6876 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
6877 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
6878 you have not done so already.</p>
6879
6880 <p>I plan to present the new version at
6881 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
6882 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
6883 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
6884
6885       </div>
6886       <div class="tags">
6887
6888
6889         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>.
6890
6891
6892       </div>
6893     </div>
6894     <div class="padding"></div>
6895
6896     <div class="entry">
6897       <div class="title">
6898         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
6899       </div>
6900       <div class="date">
6901          9th March 2012
6902       </div>
6903       <div class="body">
6904         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
6905 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
6906 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6907 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
6908 more international audience.</p>
6909
6910 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
6911 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
6912 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
6913 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
6914 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
6915 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
6916 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
6917
6918
6919 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6920
6921 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
6922 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
6923 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
6924 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
6925 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
6926 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
6927 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
6928 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
6929 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
6930 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
6931 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
6932
6933 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
6934 project?</strong></p>
6935
6936 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
6937 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
6938 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
6939 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
6940 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
6941 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
6942 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
6943 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
6944 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
6945 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
6946 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
6947 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
6948 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
6949
6950 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6951 Edu?</strong></p>
6952
6953 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
6954 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
6955 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
6956 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
6957 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
6958 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
6959 Japan.</p>
6960
6961 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6962 Edu?</strong></p>
6963
6964 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
6965 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
6966 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
6967 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
6968 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
6969 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
6970 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
6971 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
6972 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
6973 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
6974 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
6975 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
6976 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
6977 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
6978 help.</p>
6979
6980 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6981
6982 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
6983 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
6984 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
6985 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
6986 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
6987 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
6988 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
6989 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
6990 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
6991 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
6992 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
6993
6994 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6995 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6996
6997 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
6998 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
6999 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
7000 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
7001 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
7002 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
7003 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
7004 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
7005 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
7006 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
7007 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
7008 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
7009
7010       </div>
7011       <div class="tags">
7012
7013
7014         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>.
7015
7016
7017       </div>
7018     </div>
7019     <div class="padding"></div>
7020
7021     <div class="entry">
7022       <div class="title">
7023         <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>
7024       </div>
7025       <div class="date">
7026          7th March 2012
7027       </div>
7028       <div class="body">
7029         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
7030
7031 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
7032 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
7033 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
7034 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
7035 download as a
7036 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
7037 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
7038
7039 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
7040   <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"' />
7041     <p>Download video as
7042       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
7043 </video></p>
7044
7045       </div>
7046       <div class="tags">
7047
7048
7049         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>.
7050
7051
7052       </div>
7053     </div>
7054     <div class="padding"></div>
7055
7056     <div class="entry">
7057       <div class="title">
7058         <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>
7059       </div>
7060       <div class="date">
7061          4th March 2012
7062       </div>
7063       <div class="body">
7064         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
7065 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
7066 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
7067 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
7068 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
7069 need a software solution for your school.</p>
7070
7071       </div>
7072       <div class="tags">
7073
7074
7075         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7076
7077
7078       </div>
7079     </div>
7080     <div class="padding"></div>
7081
7082     <div class="entry">
7083       <div class="title">
7084         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Stopmotion_for_making_stop_motion_animations_on_Linux___reloaded.html">Stopmotion for making stop motion animations on Linux - reloaded</a>
7085       </div>
7086       <div class="date">
7087          3rd March 2012
7088       </div>
7089       <div class="body">
7090         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
7091 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
7092 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
7093 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
7094 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
7095 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
7096 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
7097 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
7098 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
7099 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
7100 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
7101 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
7102 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
7103 year...</p>
7104
7105 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
7106 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
7107 name,
7108 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
7109 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
7110 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
7111 mean). I've been following
7112 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
7113 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
7114 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
7115 Check it out. :)</p>
7116
7117       </div>
7118       <div class="tags">
7119
7120
7121         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>.
7122
7123
7124       </div>
7125     </div>
7126     <div class="padding"></div>
7127
7128     <div class="entry">
7129       <div class="title">
7130         <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>
7131       </div>
7132       <div class="date">
7133         27th February 2012
7134       </div>
7135       <div class="body">
7136         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
7137 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
7138 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
7139 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
7140 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
7141 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
7142 need a software solution for your school.</p>
7143
7144       </div>
7145       <div class="tags">
7146
7147
7148         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>.
7149
7150
7151       </div>
7152     </div>
7153     <div class="padding"></div>
7154
7155     <div class="entry">
7156       <div class="title">
7157         <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>
7158       </div>
7159       <div class="date">
7160         19th February 2012
7161       </div>
7162       <div class="body">
7163         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
7164 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
7165 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
7166 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
7167 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
7168 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
7169 solution for your school.</p>
7170
7171       </div>
7172       <div class="tags">
7173
7174
7175         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>.
7176
7177
7178       </div>
7179     </div>
7180     <div class="padding"></div>
7181
7182     <div class="entry">
7183       <div class="title">
7184         <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>
7185       </div>
7186       <div class="date">
7187         14th February 2012
7188       </div>
7189       <div class="body">
7190         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
7191 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
7192 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
7193 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
7194 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
7195 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
7196 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
7197 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
7198 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
7199
7200 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
7201 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
7202 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
7203 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
7204 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
7205
7206 <blockquote><pre>
7207 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
7208 do
7209     printf "Failed disk $d: "
7210     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
7211 done
7212 </blockquote></pre>
7213
7214 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
7215 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
7216
7217 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
7218
7219 <blockquote><pre>
7220 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
7221 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
7222 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
7223 </blockquote></pre>
7224
7225 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
7226 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
7227 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
7228 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
7229 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
7230 mounted inside my box.</p>
7231
7232 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
7233 Software RAID in the
7234 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
7235 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
7236 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
7237 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
7238 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
7239 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
7240
7241       </div>
7242       <div class="tags">
7243
7244
7245         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>.
7246
7247
7248       </div>
7249     </div>
7250     <div class="padding"></div>
7251
7252     <div class="entry">
7253       <div class="title">
7254         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
7255       </div>
7256       <div class="date">
7257         13th February 2012
7258       </div>
7259       <div class="body">
7260         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
7261 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
7262 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
7263 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
7264 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
7265 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
7266 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
7267 change the global proxy setting by editing
7268 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
7269 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
7270
7271 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
7272 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
7273 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
7274
7275 <blockquote><pre>
7276 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
7277 {
7278    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
7279        isPlainHostName(host) ||
7280        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
7281       return "DIRECT";
7282    else
7283       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
7284 }
7285 </pre></blockquote>
7286
7287 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
7288
7289 <blockquote><pre>
7290 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
7291 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
7292 </pre></blockquote>
7293
7294 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
7295 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
7296 would be used for
7297 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
7298 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
7299 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
7300 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
7301 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
7302 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
7303 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
7304 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
7305 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
7306 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
7307
7308 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
7309 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
7310 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
7311 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
7312 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
7313 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
7314
7315 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
7316 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
7317 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
7318 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
7319 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
7320 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
7321 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
7322 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
7323 the network setup changes.</p>
7324
7325 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
7326 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
7327 draft</a> and a
7328 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
7329 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
7330
7331       </div>
7332       <div class="tags">
7333
7334
7335         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>.
7336
7337
7338       </div>
7339     </div>
7340     <div class="padding"></div>
7341
7342     <div class="entry">
7343       <div class="title">
7344         <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>
7345       </div>
7346       <div class="date">
7347          5th February 2012
7348       </div>
7349       <div class="body">
7350         <p>Since the Lenny version of
7351 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
7352 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
7353 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
7354 in the morning.  This is done using the
7355 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
7356
7357 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
7358 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
7359 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
7360 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
7361 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
7362 the
7363 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
7364 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
7365 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
7366 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
7367 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
7368
7369 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
7370 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
7371 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
7372 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
7373 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
7374 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
7375 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
7376
7377 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
7378 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
7379 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
7380 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
7381 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
7382
7383       </div>
7384       <div class="tags">
7385
7386
7387         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>.
7388
7389
7390       </div>
7391     </div>
7392     <div class="padding"></div>
7393
7394     <div class="entry">
7395       <div class="title">
7396         <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>
7397       </div>
7398       <div class="date">
7399          4th February 2012
7400       </div>
7401       <div class="body">
7402         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
7403 publish the third beta version of
7404 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
7405 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
7406 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
7407 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
7408 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
7409 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
7410 on the project announcement list.</p>
7411
7412 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
7413 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
7414
7415 <ul>
7416
7417 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
7418   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
7419   the installation.</li>
7420
7421 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
7422   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
7423
7424 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
7425   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
7426   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
7427
7428 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
7429   for the local system administrator is created during installation
7430   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
7431   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
7432   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
7433   up to date on the system.</li>
7434
7435 </ul>
7436
7437 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
7438 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
7439 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
7440 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
7441
7442 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
7443 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
7444 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
7445 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
7446 will see you there?</p>
7447
7448       </div>
7449       <div class="tags">
7450
7451
7452         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>.
7453
7454
7455       </div>
7456     </div>
7457     <div class="padding"></div>
7458
7459     <div class="entry">
7460       <div class="title">
7461         <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>
7462       </div>
7463       <div class="date">
7464         27th January 2012
7465       </div>
7466       <div class="body">
7467         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
7468 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
7469 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
7470 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
7471 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
7472 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
7473 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
7474
7475 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
7476 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
7477 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
7478 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
7479 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
7480 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
7481 not taken care of by this.</p>
7482
7483 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
7484 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
7485 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
7486 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
7487 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
7488 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
7489 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
7490 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
7491 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
7492 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
7493 firmware packages.</p>
7494
7495 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
7496 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
7497 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
7498 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
7499 initrd with extra firmware, the
7500 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
7501 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
7502 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
7503
7504 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
7505 network cards working.  For this,
7506 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
7507 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
7508 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
7509
7510 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
7511 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
7512 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
7513
7514 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
7515 try.</p>
7516
7517       </div>
7518       <div class="tags">
7519
7520
7521         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>.
7522
7523
7524       </div>
7525     </div>
7526     <div class="padding"></div>
7527
7528     <div class="entry">
7529       <div class="title">
7530         <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>
7531       </div>
7532       <div class="date">
7533         25th January 2012
7534       </div>
7535       <div class="body">
7536         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
7537 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
7538 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
7539 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
7540 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
7541
7542 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
7543 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
7544 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
7545 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
7546 this is done, log on to the central server and run
7547 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
7548 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
7549 will look similar to this:</p>
7550
7551 <p><blockquote><pre>
7552 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
7553 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
7554 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.
7555
7556 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
7557
7558 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7559 enter password: *******
7560 %
7561 </pre></blockquote></p>
7562
7563 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
7564 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
7565 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
7566 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
7567 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
7568 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
7569 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
7570 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
7571 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
7572 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
7573 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
7574 automatically.</p>
7575
7576 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
7577 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
7578
7579 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
7580 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
7581 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
7582
7583       </div>
7584       <div class="tags">
7585
7586
7587         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>.
7588
7589
7590       </div>
7591     </div>
7592     <div class="padding"></div>
7593
7594     <div class="entry">
7595       <div class="title">
7596         <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>
7597       </div>
7598       <div class="date">
7599         10th January 2012
7600       </div>
7601       <div class="body">
7602         <p>In the Squeeze version of
7603 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
7604 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
7605 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
7606 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
7607 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
7608 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
7609 first time.</p>
7610
7611 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
7612 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
7613 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
7614 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
7615
7616 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
7617 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
7618 new setting.</p>
7619
7620 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
7621 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
7622 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
7623
7624       </div>
7625       <div class="tags">
7626
7627
7628         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>.
7629
7630
7631       </div>
7632     </div>
7633     <div class="padding"></div>
7634
7635     <div class="entry">
7636       <div class="title">
7637         <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>
7638       </div>
7639       <div class="date">
7640          7th January 2012
7641       </div>
7642       <div class="body">
7643         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
7644 the second beta version of
7645 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
7646 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
7647 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
7648 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
7649 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
7650 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
7651 on the project announcement list.</p>
7652
7653       </div>
7654       <div class="tags">
7655
7656
7657         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>.
7658
7659
7660       </div>
7661     </div>
7662     <div class="padding"></div>
7663
7664     <div class="entry">
7665       <div class="title">
7666         <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>
7667       </div>
7668       <div class="date">
7669          3rd January 2012
7670       </div>
7671       <div class="body">
7672         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
7673 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
7674 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
7675 interesting.</p>
7676
7677 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
7678 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
7679 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
7680 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
7681 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
7682 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
7683 wrap up its tasks.</p>
7684
7685 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
7686 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
7687 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
7688 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
7689 because I was typing.</P>
7690
7691 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
7692 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
7693 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
7694 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
7695 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
7696 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
7697 generate entropy.</p>
7698
7699 <p>The fix is in
7700 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
7701 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
7702 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
7703 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
7704
7705       </div>
7706       <div class="tags">
7707
7708
7709         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>.
7710
7711
7712       </div>
7713     </div>
7714     <div class="padding"></div>
7715
7716     <div class="entry">
7717       <div class="title">
7718         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
7719       </div>
7720       <div class="date">
7721         21st November 2011
7722       </div>
7723       <div class="body">
7724         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
7725 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
7726 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
7727 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
7728 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
7729 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
7730 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
7731 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
7732 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
7733 the tools to do so.</p>
7734
7735 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
7736 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
7737 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
7738 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
7739
7740 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
7741 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
7742 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
7743 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
7744 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
7745 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
7746 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
7747 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
7748
7749 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
7750 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
7751 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
7752
7753 <p><pre>
7754 #!/usr/bin/perl
7755 use strict;
7756 use warnings;
7757 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
7758 BEGIN {
7759     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
7760     my %rhelmodules = (
7761         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
7762         );
7763     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
7764         eval "use $module;";
7765         if ($@) {
7766             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
7767             system("yum install -y $pkg");
7768             eval "use $module;";
7769         }
7770     }
7771 }
7772 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
7773
7774 upgrade_dell();
7775
7776 exit 0;
7777
7778 sub run_firmware_script {
7779     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
7780     unless ($script) {
7781         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
7782         exit 1
7783     }
7784     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
7785
7786     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
7787         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
7788     } else {
7789         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
7790     }
7791 }
7792
7793 sub run_firmware_scripts {
7794     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
7795     # Run firmware packages
7796     for my $dir (@dirs) {
7797         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
7798         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
7799         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
7800             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
7801             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
7802         }
7803         closedir $dh;
7804     }
7805 }
7806
7807 sub download {
7808     my $url = shift;
7809     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
7810     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
7811 }
7812
7813 sub upgrade_dell {
7814     my @dirs;
7815     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
7816     chomp $product;
7817
7818     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
7819
7820         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
7821         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
7822
7823         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
7824             CLEANUP => 1
7825             );
7826         chdir($tmpdir);
7827         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
7828         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
7829         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
7830         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
7831         my $fwopts = "-q";
7832         if (@paths) {
7833             for my $url (@paths) {
7834                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
7835             }
7836             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
7837         } else {
7838             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
7839             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
7840         }
7841         chdir('/');
7842     } else {
7843         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
7844         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
7845     }
7846 }
7847
7848 sub fetch_dell_fw {
7849     my $path = shift;
7850     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
7851     download($url);
7852 }
7853
7854 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
7855 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
7856 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
7857 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
7858     my $filename = shift;
7859
7860     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
7861     chomp $product;
7862     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
7863
7864     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
7865
7866     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
7867     my @paths;
7868     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
7869         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
7870         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
7871         my $oscode;
7872         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
7873             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
7874         } else {
7875             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
7876         }
7877         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
7878         {
7879             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
7880         }
7881     }
7882     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
7883         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
7884
7885         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
7886         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
7887
7888         my $cpath = $component->{path};
7889         for my $path (@paths) {
7890             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
7891                 push(@paths, $cpath);
7892             }
7893         }
7894     }
7895     return @paths;
7896 }
7897 </pre>
7898
7899 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
7900 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
7901 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
7902 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
7903 outdated.</p>
7904
7905       </div>
7906       <div class="tags">
7907
7908
7909         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>.
7910
7911
7912       </div>
7913     </div>
7914     <div class="padding"></div>
7915
7916     <div class="entry">
7917       <div class="title">
7918         <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>
7919       </div>
7920       <div class="date">
7921          7th October 2011
7922       </div>
7923       <div class="body">
7924         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
7925 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
7926 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
7927 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
7928 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
7929 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
7930 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
7931 models.</p>
7932
7933 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
7934 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
7935 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
7936 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
7937
7938 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
7939 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
7940 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
7941 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
7942 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
7943 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
7944 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
7945 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
7946 distributed.</p>
7947
7948 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
7949
7950 <ul>
7951
7952 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
7953   other relevant equipment.</li>
7954
7955 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
7956
7957 </ul>
7958
7959 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
7960 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
7961 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
7962 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
7963 books available.</p>
7964
7965 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
7966 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
7967 libraries. :)</p>
7968
7969       </div>
7970       <div class="tags">
7971
7972
7973         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>.
7974
7975
7976       </div>
7977     </div>
7978     <div class="padding"></div>
7979
7980     <div class="entry">
7981       <div class="title">
7982         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
7983       </div>
7984       <div class="date">
7985         17th September 2011
7986       </div>
7987       <div class="body">
7988         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
7989 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
7990 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
7991 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
7992 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
7993 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
7994 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
7995 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
7996
7997 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
7998
7999 <blockquote><pre>
8000 #!/bin/sh
8001 # apt-get install lsdvd
8002 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
8003 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
8004 </pre></blockquote>
8005
8006 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
8007 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
8008 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
8009 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
8010
8011 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
8012 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
8013 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
8014 back as an ISO.
8015
8016 <blockquote><pre>
8017 #!/bin/sh
8018 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
8019 set -e
8020 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
8021 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
8022 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
8023 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
8024 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
8025 </pre></blockquote>
8026
8027 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
8028
8029 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
8030 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
8031 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
8032 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
8033 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
8034
8035 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
8036 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
8037 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
8038 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
8039 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
8040 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
8041
8042       </div>
8043       <div class="tags">
8044
8045
8046         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>.
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/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</a>
8056       </div>
8057       <div class="date">
8058          4th August 2011
8059       </div>
8060       <div class="body">
8061         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
8062 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
8063 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
8064 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
8065 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
8066 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
8067 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
8068 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
8069 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
8070
8071 <p><blockquote>
8072 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
8073 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
8074 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
8075 </blockquote></p>
8076
8077 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
8078 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
8079 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
8080 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
8081 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
8082 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
8083 hard to explain.</p>
8084
8085 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
8086 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
8087 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
8088 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
8089 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
8090 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
8091 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
8092 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
8093 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
8094 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
8095 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
8096 mode).</p>
8097
8098 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
8099 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
8100 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
8101 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
8102 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
8103 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
8104 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
8105 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
8106 after visiting single user mode.</p>
8107
8108 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
8109 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
8110 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
8111 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
8112 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
8113 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
8114 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
8115 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
8116
8117 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
8118 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
8119 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
8120
8121       </div>
8122       <div class="tags">
8123
8124
8125         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>.
8126
8127
8128       </div>
8129     </div>
8130     <div class="padding"></div>
8131
8132     <div class="entry">
8133       <div class="title">
8134         <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>
8135       </div>
8136       <div class="date">
8137         30th July 2011
8138       </div>
8139       <div class="body">
8140         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
8141 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
8142 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
8143 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
8144 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
8145 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
8146 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
8147 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
8148 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
8149 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
8150 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
8151 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
8152 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
8153
8154 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
8155 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
8156 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
8157 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
8158 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
8159 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
8160 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
8161 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
8162 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
8163
8164 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
8165 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
8166 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
8167 is presented.</p>
8168
8169 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
8170 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
8171 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
8172 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
8173 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
8174 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
8175 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
8176 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
8177 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
8178 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
8179 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
8180 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
8181 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
8182 find time to push this forward.</p>
8183
8184       </div>
8185       <div class="tags">
8186
8187
8188         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>.
8189
8190
8191       </div>
8192     </div>
8193     <div class="padding"></div>
8194
8195     <div class="entry">
8196       <div class="title">
8197         <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>
8198       </div>
8199       <div class="date">
8200         29th July 2011
8201       </div>
8202       <div class="body">
8203         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
8204 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
8205 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
8206 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
8207 issues.</p>
8208
8209 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
8210 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
8211 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
8212
8213 <ol>
8214
8215 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
8216 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
8217 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
8218 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
8219 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
8220 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
8221 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
8222 Debian.</li>
8223
8224 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
8225 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
8226 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
8227 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
8228 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
8229 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
8230 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
8231 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
8232 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
8233 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
8234 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
8235 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
8236 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
8237
8238 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
8239 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
8240 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
8241 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
8242 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
8243 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
8244 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
8245 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
8246 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
8247 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
8248
8249 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
8250 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
8251 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
8252 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
8253 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
8254 latter behaviour.</li>
8255
8256 </ol>
8257
8258 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
8259 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
8260 it do not matter much.</p>
8261
8262 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
8263 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
8264 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
8265
8266       </div>
8267       <div class="tags">
8268
8269
8270         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>.
8271
8272
8273       </div>
8274     </div>
8275     <div class="padding"></div>
8276
8277     <div class="entry">
8278       <div class="title">
8279         <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>
8280       </div>
8281       <div class="date">
8282         26th July 2011
8283       </div>
8284       <div class="body">
8285         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
8286 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
8287 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
8288 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
8289 security support for a few years.</p>
8290
8291 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
8292 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
8293 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
8294 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
8295 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
8296 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
8297 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
8298 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
8299 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
8300 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
8301 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
8302 easier in the future.</p>
8303
8304 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
8305 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
8306 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
8307 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
8308 do not have time for.</p>
8309
8310       </div>
8311       <div class="tags">
8312
8313
8314         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>.
8315
8316
8317       </div>
8318     </div>
8319     <div class="padding"></div>
8320
8321     <div class="entry">
8322       <div class="title">
8323         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
8324       </div>
8325       <div class="date">
8326         20th June 2011
8327       </div>
8328       <div class="body">
8329         <p>Reading
8330 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
8331 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
8332 parts of the
8333 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
8334 and
8335 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
8336 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
8337 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
8338 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
8339
8340       </div>
8341       <div class="tags">
8342
8343
8344         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>.
8345
8346
8347       </div>
8348     </div>
8349     <div class="padding"></div>
8350
8351     <div class="entry">
8352       <div class="title">
8353         <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>
8354       </div>
8355       <div class="date">
8356         30th April 2011
8357       </div>
8358       <div class="body">
8359         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
8360 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
8361 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
8362 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
8363 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
8364 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
8365 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
8366 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
8367 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
8368 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
8369
8370 <p>Where is it?  Visit
8371 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
8372 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
8373 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
8374 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
8375
8376       </div>
8377       <div class="tags">
8378
8379
8380         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>.
8381
8382
8383       </div>
8384     </div>
8385     <div class="padding"></div>
8386
8387     <div class="entry">
8388       <div class="title">
8389         <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>
8390       </div>
8391       <div class="date">
8392         29th April 2011
8393       </div>
8394       <div class="body">
8395         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
8396 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
8397 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
8398 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
8399 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
8400 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
8401 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
8402 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
8403 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
8404 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
8405 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
8406 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
8407 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
8408
8409 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
8410 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
8411 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
8412 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
8413 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
8414 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
8415 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
8416 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
8417 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
8418 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
8419 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
8420 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
8421 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
8422
8423 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
8424 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
8425 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
8426 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
8427 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
8428 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
8429 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
8430 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
8431 it.</p>
8432
8433 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
8434 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
8435 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
8436 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
8437 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
8438 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
8439 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
8440
8441 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
8442 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
8443 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
8444 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
8445 and range= options.</p>
8446
8447 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
8448 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
8449 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
8450 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
8451 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
8452 to best handle this.  I've noticed
8453 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
8454 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
8455 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
8456 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
8457
8458 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
8459 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
8460 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
8461 discussions instead of only
8462 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
8463 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
8464 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
8465 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
8466 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
8467 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
8468
8469       </div>
8470       <div class="tags">
8471
8472
8473         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>.
8474
8475
8476       </div>
8477     </div>
8478     <div class="padding"></div>
8479
8480     <div class="entry">
8481       <div class="title">
8482         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
8483       </div>
8484       <div class="date">
8485          6th April 2011
8486       </div>
8487       <div class="body">
8488         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
8489 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
8490 A few days ago the project
8491 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
8492 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
8493 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
8494 into Gnash.</p>
8495
8496       </div>
8497       <div class="tags">
8498
8499
8500         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>.
8501
8502
8503       </div>
8504     </div>
8505     <div class="padding"></div>
8506
8507     <div class="entry">
8508       <div class="title">
8509         <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>
8510       </div>
8511       <div class="date">
8512          3rd April 2011
8513       </div>
8514       <div class="body">
8515         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
8516 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
8517 update in English.</p>
8518
8519 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
8520 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
8521 of the British service
8522 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
8523 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
8524 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
8525 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
8526 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
8527 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
8528 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
8529 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
8530 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
8531 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
8532 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
8533 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
8534 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
8535
8536 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
8537 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
8538 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
8539 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
8540 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
8541 public infrastructure.</p>
8542
8543 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
8544 such service?</p>
8545
8546       </div>
8547       <div class="tags">
8548
8549
8550         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>.
8551
8552
8553       </div>
8554     </div>
8555     <div class="padding"></div>
8556
8557     <div class="entry">
8558       <div class="title">
8559         <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>
8560       </div>
8561       <div class="date">
8562         28th January 2011
8563       </div>
8564       <div class="body">
8565         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
8566 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
8567 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
8568 available on the Internet, and check our locally
8569 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
8570 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
8571 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
8572 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
8573 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
8574 out which security holes were present in our free software
8575 collection.</p>
8576
8577 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
8578 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
8579 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
8580 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
8581 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
8582 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
8583 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
8584 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
8585 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
8586 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
8587 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
8588 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
8589 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
8590 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
8591 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
8592 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
8593
8594 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
8595 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
8596 check out, one could look up
8597 <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
8598 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
8599 The most recent one is
8600 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
8601 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
8602 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
8603
8604 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
8605 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
8606 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
8607 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
8608 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
8609 security issues out.</p>
8610
8611 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
8612 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
8613 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
8614 RHEL is providing
8615 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
8616 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
8617 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
8618
8619 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
8620 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
8621 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
8622 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
8623 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
8624 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
8625 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
8626 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
8627 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
8628 established soon.</p>
8629
8630 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
8631 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
8632 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
8633 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
8634 for their packages.</p>
8635
8636       </div>
8637       <div class="tags">
8638
8639
8640         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>.
8641
8642
8643       </div>
8644     </div>
8645     <div class="padding"></div>
8646
8647     <div class="entry">
8648       <div class="title">
8649         <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>
8650       </div>
8651       <div class="date">
8652         23rd January 2011
8653       </div>
8654       <div class="body">
8655         <p>In the
8656 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
8657 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
8658 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
8659 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
8660 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
8661 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
8662 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
8663 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
8664 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
8665 one of my machines like this:</p>
8666
8667 <pre>
8668 loaded modules:
8669 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
8670 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
8671 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
8672 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
8673 10de:03ec pata_amd
8674 10de:03f6 sata_nv
8675 1022:1103 k8temp
8676 109e:036e bttv
8677 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
8678 11ab:4364 sky2
8679 </pre>
8680
8681 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
8682 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
8683
8684 <pre>
8685 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
8686     echo loaded pci modules:
8687     (
8688         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
8689         for address in * ; do
8690             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
8691                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
8692                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
8693                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
8694                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
8695                     echo "$id $module"
8696                 fi
8697             fi
8698         done
8699     )
8700     echo
8701 fi
8702 </pre>
8703
8704 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
8705 mappings:</p>
8706
8707 <pre>
8708 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
8709     echo loaded usb modules:
8710     (
8711         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
8712         for address in * ; do
8713             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
8714                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
8715                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
8716                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
8717                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
8718                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
8719                         echo "$id $module"
8720                     fi
8721                 fi
8722             fi
8723         done
8724     )
8725     echo
8726 fi
8727 </pre>
8728
8729 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
8730 well.</p>
8731
8732       </div>
8733       <div class="tags">
8734
8735
8736         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>.
8737
8738
8739       </div>
8740     </div>
8741     <div class="padding"></div>
8742
8743     <div class="entry">
8744       <div class="title">
8745         <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>
8746       </div>
8747       <div class="date">
8748         16th January 2011
8749       </div>
8750       <div class="body">
8751         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
8752 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
8753 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
8754 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
8755 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
8756 the Wikipedia article on
8757 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
8758 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
8759 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
8760 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
8761 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
8762 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
8763 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
8764 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
8765 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
8766 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
8767 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
8768 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
8769
8770 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
8771 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
8772 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
8773 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
8774 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
8775 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
8776 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
8777 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
8778 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
8779 from last week</a>.</p>
8780
8781 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
8782 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
8783 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
8784 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
8785 was without royalties and license terms, check out
8786 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
8787 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
8788
8789 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
8790 available from
8791 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
8792 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
8793 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
8794
8795 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
8796 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
8797 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
8798 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
8799
8800       </div>
8801       <div class="tags">
8802
8803
8804         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>.
8805
8806
8807       </div>
8808     </div>
8809     <div class="padding"></div>
8810
8811     <div class="entry">
8812       <div class="title">
8813         <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>
8814       </div>
8815       <div class="date">
8816         12th January 2011
8817       </div>
8818       <div class="body">
8819         <p>Today I discovered
8820 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
8821 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
8822 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
8823 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
8824 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
8825 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
8826 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
8827 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
8828 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
8829 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
8830 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
8831 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
8832 on the Google announcement is available from
8833 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
8834 A good read. :)</p>
8835
8836 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
8837 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
8838 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
8839 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
8840 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
8841 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
8842 browsers support H.264, and others support
8843 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
8844 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
8845 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
8846 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
8847 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
8848 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
8849 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
8850 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
8851
8852 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
8853 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
8854 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
8855 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
8856 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
8857 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
8858 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
8859
8860 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
8861 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
8862 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
8863 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
8864 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
8865 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
8866 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
8867
8868 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
8869 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
8870 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
8871 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
8872 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
8873 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
8874 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
8875
8876 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
8877 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
8878 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
8879 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
8880 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
8881 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
8882 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
8883 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
8884 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
8885 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
8886 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
8887 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
8888 I guess time will tell.</p>
8889
8890 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
8891 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
8892 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
8893
8894       </div>
8895       <div class="tags">
8896
8897
8898         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>.
8899
8900
8901       </div>
8902     </div>
8903     <div class="padding"></div>
8904
8905     <div class="entry">
8906       <div class="title">
8907         <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>
8908       </div>
8909       <div class="date">
8910         30th December 2010
8911       </div>
8912       <div class="body">
8913         <p>After trying to
8914 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
8915 Ogg Theora</a> to
8916 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
8917 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
8918 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
8919 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
8920 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
8921 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
8922 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
8923
8924 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
8925 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
8926 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
8927 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
8928 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
8929 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
8930 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
8931
8932 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
8933 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
8934
8935       </div>
8936       <div class="tags">
8937
8938
8939         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>.
8940
8941
8942       </div>
8943     </div>
8944     <div class="padding"></div>
8945
8946     <div class="entry">
8947       <div class="title">
8948         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
8949       </div>
8950       <div class="date">
8951         27th December 2010
8952       </div>
8953       <div class="body">
8954         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
8955 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
8956 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
8957 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
8958 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
8959 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
8960 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
8961 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
8962
8963 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
8964 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
8965 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
8966 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
8967 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
8968 page</a>.</p>
8969
8970 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
8971 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
8972 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
8973 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
8974 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
8975 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
8976 specification on equal terms.</p>
8977
8978 <blockquote>
8979
8980 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
8981 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
8982 open standard:</p>
8983
8984 <ul>
8985
8986 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
8987 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
8988 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
8989 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
8990
8991 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
8992 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
8993 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
8994 nominal fee.</li>
8995
8996 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
8997 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
8998 free basis.</li>
8999
9000 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
9001
9002 </ul>
9003 </blockquote>
9004
9005 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
9006 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
9007 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
9008 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
9009 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
9010 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
9011 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
9012
9013 <blockquote>
9014
9015 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
9016
9017 <ol>
9018
9019 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
9020 tilgængelig.</li>
9021
9022 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
9023 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
9024
9025 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
9026 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
9027
9028 </ol>
9029
9030 </blockquote>
9031
9032 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
9033 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
9034
9035 <blockquote>
9036
9037 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
9038
9039 <ol>
9040
9041 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
9042 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
9043
9044 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
9045 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
9046 Standard themselves;</li>
9047
9048 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
9049 any party or in any business model;</li>
9050
9051 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
9052 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
9053 parties;</li>
9054
9055 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
9056 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
9057 parties.</li>
9058
9059 </ol>
9060
9061 </blockquote>
9062
9063 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
9064 its
9065 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
9066 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
9067
9068 <blockquote>
9069 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
9070
9071 <ul>
9072
9073 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
9074   democratic:
9075
9076          <ul>
9077
9078          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
9079             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
9080             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
9081             and managed.</li>
9082
9083          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
9084             method, can be changed through input from all
9085             participants.</li>
9086
9087          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
9088             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
9089
9090          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
9091             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
9092
9093          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
9094             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
9095             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
9096
9097          </ul>
9098
9099 </li>
9100
9101 </ul>
9102
9103 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
9104 <ul>
9105
9106 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
9107   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
9108   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
9109   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
9110   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
9111
9112 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
9113   a technical or economic barriers</li>
9114
9115 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
9116   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
9117   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
9118   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
9119   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
9120   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
9121   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
9122   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
9123   intended to function.</li>
9124
9125 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
9126   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
9127   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
9128
9129 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
9130   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
9131   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
9132   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
9133   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
9134   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
9135   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
9136   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
9137
9138       <ul>
9139
9140       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
9141         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
9142         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
9143
9144       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
9145         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
9146         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
9147         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
9148
9149       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
9150         licensor</li>
9151
9152       </ul>
9153 </li>
9154
9155 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
9156   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
9157   or restricted licensing terms</li>
9158
9159 </ul>
9160
9161 </blockquote>
9162
9163 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
9164 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
9165 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
9166 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
9167 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
9168 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
9169 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
9170 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
9171 Standards.</p>
9172
9173       </div>
9174       <div class="tags">
9175
9176
9177         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>.
9178
9179
9180       </div>
9181     </div>
9182     <div class="padding"></div>
9183
9184     <div class="entry">
9185       <div class="title">
9186         <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>
9187       </div>
9188       <div class="date">
9189         25th December 2010
9190       </div>
9191       <div class="body">
9192         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
9193 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
9194
9195 <blockquote>
9196
9197 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
9198 as follows:</p>
9199
9200 <ol>
9201
9202 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
9203 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
9204 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
9205
9206 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
9207 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
9208 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
9209 parties.</li>
9210
9211 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
9212 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
9213 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
9214
9215 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
9216 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
9217
9218 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
9219
9220 </ol>
9221
9222 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
9223 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
9224 products based on the standard.</p>
9225 </blockquote>
9226
9227 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
9228 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
9229 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
9230 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
9231 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
9232 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
9233 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
9234 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
9235
9236 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
9237
9238 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
9239 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
9240 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
9241 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
9242 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
9243 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
9244 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
9245 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
9246 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
9247 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
9248 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
9249 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
9250 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
9251 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
9252
9253 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
9254
9255 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
9256 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
9257 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
9258 documentation indicating this.</p>
9259
9260 <p>According to
9261 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
9262 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
9263 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
9264 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
9265 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
9266 report is correct.</p>
9267
9268 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
9269
9270 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
9271 container format</a> and both the
9272 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
9273 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
9274 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
9275
9276 <blockquote>
9277
9278 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
9279 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
9280 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
9281 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
9282 specification compliance.
9283
9284 </blockquote>
9285
9286 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
9287 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
9288 this is the term:<p>
9289
9290 <blockquote>
9291
9292 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
9293 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
9294 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
9295 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
9296 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
9297 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
9298 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
9299 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
9300 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
9301 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
9302 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
9303 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
9304
9305 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
9306 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
9307 </blockquote>
9308
9309 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
9310 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
9311 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
9312 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
9313 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
9314
9315 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
9316
9317 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
9318 Theora format.
9319 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
9320 and
9321 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
9322 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
9323 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
9324 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
9325 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
9326 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
9327 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
9328 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
9329
9330 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
9331
9332 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
9333
9334 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
9335
9336 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
9337 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
9338 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
9339 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
9340 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
9341 this.</p>
9342
9343 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
9344 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
9345
9346       </div>
9347       <div class="tags">
9348
9349
9350         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>.
9351
9352
9353       </div>
9354     </div>
9355     <div class="padding"></div>
9356
9357     <div class="entry">
9358       <div class="title">
9359         <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>
9360       </div>
9361       <div class="date">
9362         25th December 2010
9363       </div>
9364       <div class="body">
9365         <p>A few days ago
9366 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
9367 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
9368 2.0 of
9369 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
9370 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
9371 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
9372 Nothing very surprising there, given
9373 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
9374 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
9375 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
9376 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
9377 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
9378 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
9379 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
9380 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
9381 standard definition from its content.</p>
9382
9383 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
9384 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
9385 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
9386 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
9387 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
9388 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
9389 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
9390 background information about that story is available in
9391 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
9392 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
9393
9394 <blockquote>
9395 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
9396 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
9397 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
9398
9399 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
9400
9401 <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>
9402
9403 <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>
9404
9405 <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>
9406
9407 <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>
9408
9409 <p>
9410 <ul>
9411 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
9412 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
9413 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
9414 </ul>
9415 </p>
9416
9417 <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>
9418
9419 <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>
9420
9421 <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>
9422
9423 <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>
9424
9425 <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>
9426
9427
9428 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
9429 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
9430 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
9431 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
9432 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
9433 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
9434
9435 </p>
9436
9437 <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>
9438
9439 <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>
9440
9441 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
9442
9443 <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>
9444
9445 <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>
9446
9447 <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>
9448
9449 <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>
9450
9451 <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>
9452
9453 <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>
9454
9455 <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>
9456
9457 <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>
9458
9459 <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>
9460
9461 <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>
9462
9463 <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>
9464
9465 <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>
9466
9467 <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>
9468
9469 <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>
9470
9471 <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>
9472
9473 <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>
9474
9475 <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>
9476
9477 <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>
9478
9479 <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>
9480
9481 <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>
9482
9483 <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>
9484
9485 <p>On security:</p>
9486
9487 <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>
9488
9489 <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>
9490
9491 <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>
9492
9493 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
9494
9495 <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>
9496
9497 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
9498
9499 <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>
9500
9501 <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>
9502
9503 <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>
9504
9505 <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>
9506
9507 <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>
9508
9509 <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>
9510
9511 <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>
9512
9513 <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>
9514
9515 <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>
9516
9517 <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>
9518
9519 <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>
9520
9521 <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>
9522
9523 <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>
9524
9525 <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>
9526
9527 <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>
9528
9529 <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>
9530
9531 <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>
9532
9533 <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>
9534
9535 <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>
9536
9537 <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>
9538
9539 <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>
9540
9541 <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>
9542
9543 <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>
9544
9545 <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>
9546
9547 <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>
9548
9549 <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>
9550
9551 <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>
9552
9553 <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>
9554
9555 <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>
9556
9557 <p>Cordially,<br>
9558 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
9559 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
9560 </blockquote>
9561
9562       </div>
9563       <div class="tags">
9564
9565
9566         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>.
9567
9568
9569       </div>
9570     </div>
9571     <div class="padding"></div>
9572
9573     <div class="entry">
9574       <div class="title">
9575         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
9576       </div>
9577       <div class="date">
9578         25th December 2010
9579       </div>
9580       <div class="body">
9581         <p>Half a year ago I
9582 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
9583 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
9584 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
9585 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
9586
9587 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
9588 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
9589 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
9590 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
9591 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
9592 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
9593 got such a great test tool available.</p>
9594
9595       </div>
9596       <div class="tags">
9597
9598
9599         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>.
9600
9601
9602       </div>
9603     </div>
9604     <div class="padding"></div>
9605
9606     <div class="entry">
9607       <div class="title">
9608         <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>
9609       </div>
9610       <div class="date">
9611         22nd December 2010
9612       </div>
9613       <div class="body">
9614         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
9615 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
9616 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
9617 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
9618 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
9619 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
9620 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
9621 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
9622 university.</p>
9623
9624 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
9625 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
9626 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
9627 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
9628 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
9629 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
9630 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
9631 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
9632
9633 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
9634 I perform on a new model.</p>
9635
9636 <ul>
9637
9638 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
9639 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
9640 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
9641
9642 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
9643 installation, X.org is working.</li>
9644
9645 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
9646 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
9647 reported by the program.</li>
9648
9649 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
9650 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
9651 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
9652 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
9653 normally test this by playing
9654 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
9655 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
9656
9657 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
9658 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
9659
9660 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
9661 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
9662
9663 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
9664 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
9665
9666 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
9667 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
9668 few.</li>
9669
9670 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
9671 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
9672 notice this.</li>
9673
9674 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
9675 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
9676 resume.</li>
9677
9678 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
9679 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
9680 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
9681 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
9682 not.</li>
9683
9684 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
9685 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
9686 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
9687 existence.</li>
9688
9689 </ul>
9690
9691 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
9692 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
9693 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
9694 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
9695 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
9696 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
9697 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
9698 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
9699
9700       </div>
9701       <div class="tags">
9702
9703
9704         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>.
9705
9706
9707       </div>
9708     </div>
9709     <div class="padding"></div>
9710
9711     <div class="entry">
9712       <div class="title">
9713         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
9714       </div>
9715       <div class="date">
9716         11th December 2010
9717       </div>
9718       <div class="body">
9719         <p>As I continue to explore
9720 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
9721 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
9722 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
9723
9724 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
9725 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
9726 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
9727 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
9728 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
9729 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
9730 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
9731 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
9732 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
9733 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
9734 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
9735 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
9736 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
9737 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
9738 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
9739 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
9740 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
9741 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
9742 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
9743 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
9744
9745 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
9746 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
9747 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
9748 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
9749 If the Skolelinux foundation
9750 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
9751 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
9752 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
9753 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
9754 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
9755 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
9756 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
9757 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
9758
9759 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
9760 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
9761 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
9762 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
9763 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
9764 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
9765 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
9766 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
9767 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
9768 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
9769 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
9770 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
9771 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
9772 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
9773 currencies.</p>
9774
9775 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
9776 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
9777 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
9778 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
9779 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
9780 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
9781 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
9782 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
9783 BitCoins.  Check out
9784 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
9785 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
9786 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
9787 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
9788 yet.</p>
9789
9790 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
9791 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
9792 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
9793 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
9794 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
9795
9796       </div>
9797       <div class="tags">
9798
9799
9800         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>.
9801
9802
9803       </div>
9804     </div>
9805     <div class="padding"></div>
9806
9807     <div class="entry">
9808       <div class="title">
9809         <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>
9810       </div>
9811       <div class="date">
9812         10th December 2010
9813       </div>
9814       <div class="body">
9815         <p>With this weeks lawless
9816 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
9817 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
9818 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
9819 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
9820 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
9821 A blog post from
9822 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
9823 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
9824 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
9825 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
9826 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
9827 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
9828 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
9829
9830 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
9831 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
9832 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
9833 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
9834 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
9835 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
9836 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
9837 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
9838 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
9839 Debian</a> soon.</p>
9840
9841 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
9842 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
9843 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
9844 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
9845 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
9846 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
9847 you can even get
9848 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
9849 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
9850 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
9851 on the current exchange rates.</p>
9852
9853 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
9854 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
9855 donations to the address
9856 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
9857
9858       </div>
9859       <div class="tags">
9860
9861
9862         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>.
9863
9864
9865       </div>
9866     </div>
9867     <div class="padding"></div>
9868
9869     <div class="entry">
9870       <div class="title">
9871         <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>
9872       </div>
9873       <div class="date">
9874          9th December 2010
9875       </div>
9876       <div class="body">
9877         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
9878 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
9879 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
9880 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
9881 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
9882 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
9883 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
9884 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
9885 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
9886 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
9887 operational.</p>
9888
9889 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
9890 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
9891 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
9892 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
9893 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
9894 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
9895 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
9896
9897       </div>
9898       <div class="tags">
9899
9900
9901         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>.
9902
9903
9904       </div>
9905     </div>
9906     <div class="padding"></div>
9907
9908     <div class="entry">
9909       <div class="title">
9910         <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>
9911       </div>
9912       <div class="date">
9913         29th November 2010
9914       </div>
9915       <div class="body">
9916         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
9917 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
9918 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
9919 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
9920 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
9921 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
9922
9923 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
9924 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
9925 will hold its
9926 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
9927 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
9928 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
9929 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
9930 vote this year.</p>
9931
9932       </div>
9933       <div class="tags">
9934
9935
9936         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>.
9937
9938
9939       </div>
9940     </div>
9941     <div class="padding"></div>
9942
9943     <div class="entry">
9944       <div class="title">
9945         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
9946       </div>
9947       <div class="date">
9948         27th November 2010
9949       </div>
9950       <div class="body">
9951         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
9952 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
9953 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
9954 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
9955 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
9956 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
9957 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
9958 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
9959
9960 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
9961 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
9962 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
9963 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
9964 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
9965 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
9966 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
9967 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
9968 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
9969 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
9970 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
9971
9972 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
9973 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
9974 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
9975 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
9976 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
9977 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
9978 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
9979 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
9980 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
9981 what is going on.</p>
9982
9983       </div>
9984       <div class="tags">
9985
9986
9987         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>.
9988
9989
9990       </div>
9991     </div>
9992     <div class="padding"></div>
9993
9994     <div class="entry">
9995       <div class="title">
9996         <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>
9997       </div>
9998       <div class="date">
9999         22nd November 2010
10000       </div>
10001       <div class="body">
10002         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
10003 upgrade testing of the
10004 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
10005 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
10006 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
10007 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
10008
10009 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
10010
10011 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
10012
10013 <blockquote><p>
10014   apache2.2-bin
10015   aptdaemon
10016   baobab
10017   binfmt-support
10018   browser-plugin-gnash
10019   cheese-common
10020   cli-common
10021   cups-pk-helper
10022   dmz-cursor-theme
10023   empathy
10024   empathy-common
10025   freedesktop-sound-theme
10026   freeglut3
10027   gconf-defaults-service
10028   gdm-themes
10029   gedit-plugins
10030   geoclue
10031   geoclue-hostip
10032   geoclue-localnet
10033   geoclue-manual
10034   geoclue-yahoo
10035   gnash
10036   gnash-common
10037   gnome
10038   gnome-backgrounds
10039   gnome-cards-data
10040   gnome-codec-install
10041   gnome-core
10042   gnome-desktop-environment
10043   gnome-disk-utility
10044   gnome-screenshot
10045   gnome-search-tool
10046   gnome-session-canberra
10047   gnome-system-log
10048   gnome-themes-extras
10049   gnome-themes-more
10050   gnome-user-share
10051   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
10052   gstreamer0.10-tools
10053   gtk2-engines
10054   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
10055   gtk2-engines-smooth
10056   hamster-applet
10057   libapache2-mod-dnssd
10058   libapr1
10059   libaprutil1
10060   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
10061   libaprutil1-ldap
10062   libart2.0-cil
10063   libboost-date-time1.42.0
10064   libboost-python1.42.0
10065   libboost-thread1.42.0
10066   libchamplain-0.4-0
10067   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
10068   libcheese-gtk18
10069   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
10070   libcryptui0
10071   libdiscid0
10072   libelf1
10073   libepc-1.0-2
10074   libepc-common
10075   libepc-ui-1.0-2
10076   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
10077   libfreerdp0
10078   libgconf2.0-cil
10079   libgdata-common
10080   libgdata7
10081   libgdu-gtk0
10082   libgee2
10083   libgeoclue0
10084   libgexiv2-0
10085   libgif4
10086   libglade2.0-cil
10087   libglib2.0-cil
10088   libgmime2.4-cil
10089   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
10090   libgnome2.24-cil
10091   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
10092   libgpod-common
10093   libgpod4
10094   libgtk2.0-cil
10095   libgtkglext1
10096   libgtksourceview2.0-common
10097   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
10098   libmono-addins0.2-cil
10099   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
10100   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
10101   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
10102   libmono-posix2.0-cil
10103   libmono-security2.0-cil
10104   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
10105   libmono-system2.0-cil
10106   libmtp8
10107   libmusicbrainz3-6
10108   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
10109   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
10110   libopal3.6.8
10111   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
10112   libpt2.6.7
10113   libpython2.6
10114   librpm1
10115   librpmio1
10116   libsdl1.2debian
10117   libsrtp0
10118   libssh-4
10119   libtelepathy-farsight0
10120   libtelepathy-glib0
10121   libtidy-0.99-0
10122   media-player-info
10123   mesa-utils
10124   mono-2.0-gac
10125   mono-gac
10126   mono-runtime
10127   nautilus-sendto
10128   nautilus-sendto-empathy
10129   p7zip-full
10130   pkg-config
10131   python-aptdaemon
10132   python-aptdaemon-gtk
10133   python-axiom
10134   python-beautifulsoup
10135   python-bugbuddy
10136   python-clientform
10137   python-coherence
10138   python-configobj
10139   python-crypto
10140   python-cupshelpers
10141   python-elementtree
10142   python-epsilon
10143   python-evolution
10144   python-feedparser
10145   python-gdata
10146   python-gdbm
10147   python-gst0.10
10148   python-gtkglext1
10149   python-gtksourceview2
10150   python-httplib2
10151   python-louie
10152   python-mako
10153   python-markupsafe
10154   python-mechanize
10155   python-nevow
10156   python-notify
10157   python-opengl
10158   python-openssl
10159   python-pam
10160   python-pkg-resources
10161   python-pyasn1
10162   python-pysqlite2
10163   python-rdflib
10164   python-serial
10165   python-tagpy
10166   python-twisted-bin
10167   python-twisted-conch
10168   python-twisted-core
10169   python-twisted-web
10170   python-utidylib
10171   python-webkit
10172   python-xdg
10173   python-zope.interface
10174   remmina
10175   remmina-plugin-data
10176   remmina-plugin-rdp
10177   remmina-plugin-vnc
10178   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
10179   rhythmbox-plugins
10180   rpm-common
10181   rpm2cpio
10182   seahorse-plugins
10183   shotwell
10184   software-center
10185   system-config-printer-udev
10186   telepathy-gabble
10187   telepathy-mission-control-5
10188   telepathy-salut
10189   tomboy
10190   totem
10191   totem-coherence
10192   totem-mozilla
10193   totem-plugins
10194   transmission-common
10195   xdg-user-dirs
10196   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
10197   xserver-xephyr
10198 </p></blockquote>
10199
10200 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
10201
10202 <blockquote><p>
10203   cheese
10204   ekiga
10205   eog
10206   epiphany-extensions
10207   evolution-exchange
10208   fast-user-switch-applet
10209   file-roller
10210   gcalctool
10211   gconf-editor
10212   gdm
10213   gedit
10214   gedit-common
10215   gnome-games
10216   gnome-games-data
10217   gnome-nettool
10218   gnome-system-tools
10219   gnome-themes
10220   gnuchess
10221   gucharmap
10222   guile-1.8-libs
10223   libavahi-ui0
10224   libdmx1
10225   libgalago3
10226   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
10227   libgtksourceview2.0-0
10228   liblircclient0
10229   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
10230   libspeexdsp1
10231   libsvga1
10232   rhythmbox
10233   seahorse
10234   sound-juicer
10235   system-config-printer
10236   totem-common
10237   transmission-gtk
10238   vinagre
10239   vino
10240 </p></blockquote>
10241
10242 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10243
10244 <blockquote><p>
10245   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
10246 </p></blockquote>
10247
10248 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
10249
10250 <blockquote><p>
10251 [nothing]
10252 </p></blockquote>
10253
10254 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
10255
10256 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
10257
10258 <blockquote><p>
10259   ksmserver
10260 </p></blockquote>
10261
10262 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
10263
10264 <blockquote><p>
10265   kwin
10266   network-manager-kde
10267 </p></blockquote>
10268
10269 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10270
10271 <blockquote><p>
10272   arts
10273   dolphin
10274   freespacenotifier
10275   google-gadgets-gst
10276   google-gadgets-xul
10277   kappfinder
10278   kcalc
10279   kcharselect
10280   kde-core
10281   kde-plasma-desktop
10282   kde-standard
10283   kde-window-manager
10284   kdeartwork
10285   kdeartwork-emoticons
10286   kdeartwork-style
10287   kdeartwork-theme-icon
10288   kdebase
10289   kdebase-apps
10290   kdebase-workspace
10291   kdebase-workspace-bin
10292   kdebase-workspace-data
10293   kdeeject
10294   kdelibs
10295   kdeplasma-addons
10296   kdeutils
10297   kdewallpapers
10298   kdf
10299   kfloppy
10300   kgpg
10301   khelpcenter4
10302   kinfocenter
10303   konq-plugins-l10n
10304   konqueror-nsplugins
10305   kscreensaver
10306   kscreensaver-xsavers
10307   ktimer
10308   kwrite
10309   libgle3
10310   libkde4-ruby1.8
10311   libkonq5
10312   libkonq5-templates
10313   libnetpbm10
10314   libplasma-ruby
10315   libplasma-ruby1.8
10316   libqt4-ruby1.8
10317   marble-data
10318   marble-plugins
10319   netpbm
10320   nuvola-icon-theme
10321   plasma-dataengines-workspace
10322   plasma-desktop
10323   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
10324   plasma-runners-addons
10325   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
10326   plasma-scriptengine-python
10327   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
10328   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
10329   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
10330   plasma-scriptengines
10331   plasma-wallpapers-addons
10332   plasma-widget-folderview
10333   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
10334   ruby
10335   sweeper
10336   update-notifier-kde
10337   xscreensaver-data-extra
10338   xscreensaver-gl
10339   xscreensaver-gl-extra
10340   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
10341 </p></blockquote>
10342
10343 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
10344
10345 <blockquote><p>
10346   ark
10347   google-gadgets-common
10348   google-gadgets-qt
10349   htdig
10350   kate
10351   kdebase-bin
10352   kdebase-data
10353   kdepasswd
10354   kfind
10355   klipper
10356   konq-plugins
10357   konqueror
10358   ksysguard
10359   ksysguardd
10360   libarchive1
10361   libcln6
10362   libeet1
10363   libeina-svn-06
10364   libggadget-1.0-0b
10365   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
10366   libgps19
10367   libkdecorations4
10368   libkephal4
10369   libkonq4
10370   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
10371   libkscreensaver5
10372   libksgrd4
10373   libksignalplotter4
10374   libkunitconversion4
10375   libkwineffects1a
10376   libmarblewidget4
10377   libntrack-qt4-1
10378   libntrack0
10379   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
10380   libplasmaclock4a
10381   libplasmagenericshell4
10382   libprocesscore4a
10383   libprocessui4a
10384   libqalculate5
10385   libqedje0a
10386   libqtruby4shared2
10387   libqzion0a
10388   libruby1.8
10389   libscim8c2a
10390   libsmokekdecore4-3
10391   libsmokekdeui4-3
10392   libsmokekfile3
10393   libsmokekhtml3
10394   libsmokekio3
10395   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
10396   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
10397   libsmokekparts3
10398   libsmokektexteditor3
10399   libsmokekutils3
10400   libsmokenepomuk3
10401   libsmokephonon3
10402   libsmokeplasma3
10403   libsmokeqtcore4-3
10404   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
10405   libsmokeqtgui4-3
10406   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
10407   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
10408   libsmokeqtscript4-3
10409   libsmokeqtsql4-3
10410   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
10411   libsmokeqttest4-3
10412   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
10413   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
10414   libsmokeqtxml4-3
10415   libsmokesolid3
10416   libsmokesoprano3
10417   libtaskmanager4a
10418   libtidy-0.99-0
10419   libweather-ion4a
10420   libxklavier16
10421   libxxf86misc1
10422   okteta
10423   oxygencursors
10424   plasma-dataengines-addons
10425   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
10426   plasma-widget-lancelot
10427   plasma-widgets-addons
10428   plasma-widgets-workspace
10429   polkit-kde-1
10430   ruby1.8
10431   systemsettings
10432   update-notifier-common
10433 </p></blockquote>
10434
10435 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
10436 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
10437 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
10438 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
10439
10440       </div>
10441       <div class="tags">
10442
10443
10444         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>.
10445
10446
10447       </div>
10448     </div>
10449     <div class="padding"></div>
10450
10451     <div class="entry">
10452       <div class="title">
10453         <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>
10454       </div>
10455       <div class="date">
10456         22nd November 2010
10457       </div>
10458       <div class="body">
10459         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
10460 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
10461 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
10462 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
10463 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
10464 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
10465 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
10466 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
10467 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
10468
10469 <p>I found
10470 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
10471 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
10472 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
10473 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
10474 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
10475 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
10476
10477 <pre>
10478 #!/bin/sh
10479
10480 # Based on
10481 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
10482
10483 set -e
10484 set -x
10485
10486 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
10487     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
10488     exit 1
10489 else
10490     host="$1"
10491 fi
10492
10493 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
10494     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
10495     exit 1
10496 fi
10497
10498 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
10499 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
10500 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
10501 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
10502
10503 img=$host.img
10504 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
10505 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
10506
10507 parted $img mklabel msdos
10508 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
10509 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
10510 parted $img set 1 boot on
10511
10512 modprobe dm-mod
10513 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
10514 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
10515
10516 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
10517 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
10518 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
10519
10520 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
10521 losetup -d /dev/loop0
10522 </pre>
10523
10524 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
10525 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
10526
10527 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
10528 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
10529 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
10530 seem to work just fine.</p>
10531
10532       </div>
10533       <div class="tags">
10534
10535
10536         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>.
10537
10538
10539       </div>
10540     </div>
10541     <div class="padding"></div>
10542
10543     <div class="entry">
10544       <div class="title">
10545         <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>
10546       </div>
10547       <div class="date">
10548         20th November 2010
10549       </div>
10550       <div class="body">
10551         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
10552 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
10553 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
10554 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
10555
10556 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
10557 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
10558 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
10559
10560 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
10561
10562 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
10563
10564 <blockquote><p>
10565   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
10566   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
10567   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
10568   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
10569   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
10570   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
10571   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
10572   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
10573   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
10574   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
10575   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
10576   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
10577   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
10578   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
10579   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
10580   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
10581   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
10582   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
10583   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
10584   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
10585   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
10586   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
10587   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
10588   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
10589   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
10590   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
10591   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
10592   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
10593   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
10594   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
10595   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
10596   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
10597   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
10598   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
10599   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
10600   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
10601   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
10602   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
10603   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
10604   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
10605   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
10606   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
10607   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
10608   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
10609   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
10610   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
10611   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
10612   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
10613   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
10614   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
10615   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
10616   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
10617   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
10618   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
10619   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
10620   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
10621   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
10622   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
10623   zip
10624 </p></blockquote>
10625
10626 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
10627
10628 <blockquote><p>
10629   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
10630   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
10631   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
10632   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
10633   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
10634   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
10635   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
10636   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
10637   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
10638   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
10639   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
10640   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
10641   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
10642   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
10643   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
10644   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
10645   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
10646   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
10647   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
10648   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
10649   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
10650   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
10651   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
10652   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
10653   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
10654   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
10655   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
10656   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
10657   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
10658 </p></blockquote>
10659
10660 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10661
10662 <blockquote><p>
10663   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
10664 </p></blockquote>
10665
10666 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
10667
10668 <blockquote><p>
10669 [nothing]
10670 </p></blockquote>
10671
10672 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
10673
10674 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
10675
10676 <blockquote><p>
10677   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
10678   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
10679   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
10680   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
10681   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
10682   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
10683   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
10684   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
10685   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
10686   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
10687   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
10688   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
10689   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
10690   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
10691   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
10692   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
10693   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
10694   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
10695   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
10696   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
10697   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
10698   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
10699   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
10700   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
10701   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
10702   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
10703   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
10704   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
10705   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
10706   ttf-sazanami-gothic
10707 </p></blockquote>
10708
10709 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
10710
10711 <blockquote><p>
10712   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
10713   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
10714   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
10715   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
10716   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
10717   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
10718   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
10719   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
10720   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
10721   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
10722   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
10723   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
10724   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
10725   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
10726   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
10727   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
10728   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
10729   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
10730   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
10731   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
10732   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
10733   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
10734   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
10735   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
10736   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
10737   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
10738   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
10739   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
10740   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
10741   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
10742   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
10743   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
10744   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
10745 </p></blockquote>
10746
10747 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10748
10749 <blockquote><p>
10750   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
10751   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
10752   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
10753   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
10754   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
10755   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
10756   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
10757 </p></blockquote>
10758
10759 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
10760
10761 <blockquote><p>
10762   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
10763 </p></blockquote>
10764
10765       </div>
10766       <div class="tags">
10767
10768
10769         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>.
10770
10771
10772       </div>
10773     </div>
10774     <div class="padding"></div>
10775
10776     <div class="entry">
10777       <div class="title">
10778         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
10779       </div>
10780       <div class="date">
10781         20th November 2010
10782       </div>
10783       <div class="body">
10784         <p>Answering
10785 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
10786 call from the Gnash project</a> for
10787 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
10788 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
10789 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
10790 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
10791 releases out more often.</p>
10792
10793 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
10794 I have considered setting up a <a
10795 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
10796 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
10797 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
10798 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
10799 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
10800 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
10801 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
10802 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
10803 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
10804 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
10805 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
10806 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
10807
10808       </div>
10809       <div class="tags">
10810
10811
10812         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>.
10813
10814
10815       </div>
10816     </div>
10817     <div class="padding"></div>
10818
10819     <div class="entry">
10820       <div class="title">
10821         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
10822       </div>
10823       <div class="date">
10824          9th November 2010
10825       </div>
10826       <div class="body">
10827         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
10828
10829 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
10830 3D linked in from
10831 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
10832 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
10833
10834       </div>
10835       <div class="tags">
10836
10837
10838         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>.
10839
10840
10841       </div>
10842     </div>
10843     <div class="padding"></div>
10844
10845     <div class="entry">
10846       <div class="title">
10847         <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>
10848       </div>
10849       <div class="date">
10850          7th November 2010
10851       </div>
10852       <div class="body">
10853         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
10854 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
10855 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
10856 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
10857 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
10858 working using this DVD.</p>
10859
10860 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
10861 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
10862 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
10863 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
10864 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
10865 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
10866 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
10867
10868 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
10869 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
10870 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
10871 Debian archive.</p>
10872
10873 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
10874 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
10875 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
10876 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
10877 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
10878 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
10879 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
10880 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
10881 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
10882 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
10883 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
10884 free X driver should work.</p>
10885
10886 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
10887 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
10888 DVD more useful again.</p>
10889
10890       </div>
10891       <div class="tags">
10892
10893
10894         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>.
10895
10896
10897       </div>
10898     </div>
10899     <div class="padding"></div>
10900
10901     <div class="entry">
10902       <div class="title">
10903         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
10904       </div>
10905       <div class="date">
10906         24th October 2010
10907       </div>
10908       <div class="body">
10909         <p>Some updates.</p>
10910
10911 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
10912 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
10913 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
10914 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
10915 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
10916 :)</p>
10917
10918 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
10919 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
10920 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
10921 It is called
10922 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
10923 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
10924 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
10925 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
10926 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
10927 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
10928
10929 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
10930 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
10931 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
10932 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
10933 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
10934 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
10935 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
10936 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
10937 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
10938 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
10939
10940       </div>
10941       <div class="tags">
10942
10943
10944         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>.
10945
10946
10947       </div>
10948     </div>
10949     <div class="padding"></div>
10950
10951     <div class="entry">
10952       <div class="title">
10953         <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>
10954       </div>
10955       <div class="date">
10956         19th October 2010
10957       </div>
10958       <div class="body">
10959         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
10960 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
10961 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
10962 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
10963 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
10964 AVM2 flash files.</p>
10965
10966 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
10967 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
10968 following text:</P>
10969
10970 <p><blockquote>
10971
10972   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
10973   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
10974
10975   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
10976
10977   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
10978
10979   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
10980   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
10981   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
10982   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
10983   days. The project web page is available from
10984   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
10985   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
10986   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
10987
10988   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
10989   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
10990   to get this to happen.</p>
10991
10992   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
10993   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
10994
10995 </blockquote></p>
10996
10997 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
10998 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
10999 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
11000 :)</p>
11001
11002       </div>
11003       <div class="tags">
11004
11005
11006         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>.
11007
11008
11009       </div>
11010     </div>
11011     <div class="padding"></div>
11012
11013     <div class="entry">
11014       <div class="title">
11015         <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>
11016       </div>
11017       <div class="date">
11018          9th October 2010
11019       </div>
11020       <div class="body">
11021         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
11022 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
11023 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
11024 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
11025 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
11026 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
11027 robots.</p>
11028
11029 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
11030 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
11031 a few less important features too.</p>
11032
11033 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
11034 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
11035 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
11036 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
11037
11038 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
11039 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
11040 source or binary package:</p>
11041
11042 <p><ul>
11043 <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>
11044 <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>
11045 <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>
11046 </ul></p>
11047
11048 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
11049 please let me know.</p>
11050
11051       </div>
11052       <div class="tags">
11053
11054
11055         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>.
11056
11057
11058       </div>
11059     </div>
11060     <div class="padding"></div>
11061
11062     <div class="entry">
11063       <div class="title">
11064         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
11065       </div>
11066       <div class="date">
11067          3rd October 2010
11068       </div>
11069       <div class="body">
11070         <p><ul>
11071
11072 <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
11073 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
11074
11075 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
11076 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
11077 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
11078
11079 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
11080 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
11081 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
11082 simple setup.
11083
11084 </ul></p>
11085
11086       </div>
11087       <div class="tags">
11088
11089
11090         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>.
11091
11092
11093       </div>
11094     </div>
11095     <div class="padding"></div>
11096
11097     <div class="entry">
11098       <div class="title">
11099         <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>
11100       </div>
11101       <div class="date">
11102          9th September 2010
11103       </div>
11104       <div class="body">
11105         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
11106 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
11107 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
11108 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
11109 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
11110 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
11111 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
11112 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
11113 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
11114
11115 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
11116 written:</p>
11117
11118 <blockquote>
11119 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
11120 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
11121 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
11122 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
11123 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
11124
11125 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
11126 standard.</p>
11127 </blockquote>
11128
11129 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
11130 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
11131 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
11132 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
11133
11134 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
11135 read
11136 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
11137 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
11138 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
11139 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
11140 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
11141 the issue.  The solution is to support the
11142 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
11143 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
11144 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
11145
11146       </div>
11147       <div class="tags">
11148
11149
11150         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>.
11151
11152
11153       </div>
11154     </div>
11155     <div class="padding"></div>
11156
11157     <div class="entry">
11158       <div class="title">
11159         <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>
11160       </div>
11161       <div class="date">
11162          4th September 2010
11163       </div>
11164       <div class="body">
11165         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
11166 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
11167 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
11168 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
11169 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
11170 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
11171 installed.</p>
11172
11173 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
11174 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
11175 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
11176 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
11177 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
11178 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
11179 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
11180 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
11181 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
11182
11183 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
11184 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
11185 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
11186 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
11187 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
11188 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
11189 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
11190 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
11191 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
11192 pages they want to visit.</p>
11193
11194 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
11195 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
11196 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
11197 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
11198 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
11199 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
11200 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
11201 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
11202 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
11203 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
11204 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
11205
11206       </div>
11207       <div class="tags">
11208
11209
11210         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>.
11211
11212
11213       </div>
11214     </div>
11215     <div class="padding"></div>
11216
11217     <div class="entry">
11218       <div class="title">
11219         <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>
11220       </div>
11221       <div class="date">
11222          1st September 2010
11223       </div>
11224       <div class="body">
11225         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
11226 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
11227 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
11228 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
11229 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
11230 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
11231 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
11232 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
11233 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
11234 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
11235 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
11236 drive around.</p>
11237
11238 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
11239 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
11240
11241 <p><pre>
11242 use Spykee;
11243 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
11244 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
11245 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
11246 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
11247 $spykee->left();
11248 sleep 2;
11249 $spykee->right();
11250 sleep 2;
11251 $spykee->forward();
11252 sleep 2;
11253 $spykee->back();
11254 sleep 2;
11255 $spykee->stop();
11256 </pre></p>
11257
11258 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
11259 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
11260 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
11261 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
11262 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
11263 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
11264 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
11265 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
11266 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
11267 going. :).</p>
11268
11269 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
11270 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
11271 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
11272 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
11273
11274       </div>
11275       <div class="tags">
11276
11277
11278         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>.
11279
11280
11281       </div>
11282     </div>
11283     <div class="padding"></div>
11284
11285     <div class="entry">
11286       <div class="title">
11287         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
11288       </div>
11289       <div class="date">
11290         30th August 2010
11291       </div>
11292       <div class="body">
11293         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
11294 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
11295 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
11296 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
11297 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
11298 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
11299 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
11300
11301 <pre>
11302 % ln foo bar
11303 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
11304 %
11305 </pre>
11306
11307 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
11308 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
11309 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
11310 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
11311 nevertheless. :)</p>
11312
11313 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
11314 git from
11315 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
11316
11317       </div>
11318       <div class="tags">
11319
11320
11321         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>.
11322
11323
11324       </div>
11325     </div>
11326     <div class="padding"></div>
11327
11328     <div class="entry">
11329       <div class="title">
11330         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
11331       </div>
11332       <div class="date">
11333         26th August 2010
11334       </div>
11335       <div class="body">
11336         <p>My file system sematics program
11337 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
11338 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
11339 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
11340 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
11341 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
11342 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
11343 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
11344 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
11345 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
11346 script:</p>
11347
11348 <pre>
11349 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
11350   mode_t retval = 0;
11351   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
11352   if (-1 != fd) {
11353     unlink(name);
11354     struct stat statbuf;
11355     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
11356       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
11357     }
11358     close(fd);
11359   }
11360   return retval;
11361 }
11362
11363 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
11364 int test_umask(void) {
11365   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
11366
11367   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
11368   mode_t newmode;
11369   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
11370     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
11371            newmode);
11372   }
11373   umask(007);
11374   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
11375     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
11376            newmode);
11377   }
11378
11379   umask (orig_umask);
11380   return 0;
11381 }
11382
11383 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
11384   [...]
11385   test_umask();
11386   return 0;
11387 }
11388 </pre>
11389
11390 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
11391
11392 <pre>
11393 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
11394 info: testing symlink creation
11395 info: testing subdirectory creation
11396 info: testing fcntl locking
11397   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
11398   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
11399   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
11400   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
11401   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
11402   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
11403 info: testing umask effect on file creation
11404 </pre>
11405
11406 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
11407 result:</p>
11408
11409 <pre>
11410 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
11411 info: testing symlink creation
11412 info: testing subdirectory creation
11413 info: testing fcntl locking
11414   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
11415   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
11416   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
11417   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
11418   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
11419   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
11420 info: testing umask effect on file creation
11421   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
11422   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
11423 </pre>
11424
11425 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
11426 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
11427 directory.</p>
11428
11429 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
11430 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
11431
11432 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
11433 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
11434 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
11435
11436       </div>
11437       <div class="tags">
11438
11439
11440         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>.
11441
11442
11443       </div>
11444     </div>
11445     <div class="padding"></div>
11446
11447     <div class="entry">
11448       <div class="title">
11449         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
11450       </div>
11451       <div class="date">
11452         15th August 2010
11453       </div>
11454       <div class="body">
11455         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
11456 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
11457 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
11458 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
11459 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
11460 long time.</p>
11461
11462       </div>
11463       <div class="tags">
11464
11465
11466         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>.
11467
11468
11469       </div>
11470     </div>
11471     <div class="padding"></div>
11472
11473     <div class="entry">
11474       <div class="title">
11475         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
11476       </div>
11477       <div class="date">
11478          9th August 2010
11479       </div>
11480       <div class="body">
11481         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
11482 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
11483 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
11484 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
11485 generated configuration.</p>
11486
11487 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
11488 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
11489 without any manual configuration.</p>
11490
11491 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
11492 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
11493 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
11494 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
11495 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
11496 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
11497 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
11498 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
11499 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
11500 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
11501 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
11502 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
11503 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
11504 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
11505 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
11506 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
11507 use.</p>
11508
11509 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
11510 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
11511 working properly out of the box:</p>
11512
11513 <ul>
11514 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
11515 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
11516 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
11517 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
11518 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
11519 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
11520 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
11521 </ul>
11522
11523 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
11524
11525 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
11526 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
11527 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
11528 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
11529 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
11530
11531 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
11532 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
11533 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
11534 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
11535 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
11536 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
11537 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
11538 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
11539
11540 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
11541 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
11542 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
11543 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
11544 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
11545 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
11546 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
11547 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
11548 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
11549 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
11550 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
11551 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
11552 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
11553 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
11554 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
11555 current DNS domain is used.</p>
11556
11557 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
11558 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
11559 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
11560 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
11561 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
11562 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
11563 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
11564 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
11565 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
11566 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
11567 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
11568 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
11569 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
11570
11571 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
11572 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
11573 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
11574 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
11575 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
11576 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
11577 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
11578 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
11579 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
11580 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
11581 do for now. :)</p>
11582
11583 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
11584 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
11585 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
11586 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
11587 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
11588 yet.</p>
11589
11590 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
11591 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11592
11593 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
11594 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
11595 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
11596 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
11597
11598       </div>
11599       <div class="tags">
11600
11601
11602         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>.
11603
11604
11605       </div>
11606     </div>
11607     <div class="padding"></div>
11608
11609     <div class="entry">
11610       <div class="title">
11611         <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>
11612       </div>
11613       <div class="date">
11614          8th August 2010
11615       </div>
11616       <div class="body">
11617         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
11618 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
11619 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
11620 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
11621 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
11622 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
11623 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
11624
11625 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
11626 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
11627 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
11628 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
11629 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
11630 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
11631 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
11632
11633 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
11634 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
11635 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
11636 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
11637 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
11638
11639 <pre>
11640 /*
11641  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
11642  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
11643  * directory.
11644  * License: GPL v2 or later
11645  *
11646  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
11647  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
11648 */
11649
11650 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
11651 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
11652 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
11653
11654 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
11655
11656 #include &lt;errno.h>
11657 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
11658 #include &lt;stdio.h>
11659 #include &lt;string.h>
11660 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
11661 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
11662 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
11663 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
11664 #include &lt;unistd.h>
11665
11666 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
11667 /*
11668  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
11669  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
11670  * below.
11671  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
11672  */
11673 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
11674 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
11675   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
11676 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
11677   char *zErrMsg;
11678   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
11679   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
11680   unlink(name);
11681   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
11682   if( rc ){
11683     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
11684     sqlite3_close(db);
11685     return -1;
11686   }
11687
11688   /* create tables */
11689   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
11690   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
11691     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
11692     sqlite3_close(db);
11693     return -1;
11694   }
11695   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
11696   sqlite3_close(db);
11697   return 0;
11698 }
11699 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
11700
11701 /*
11702  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
11703  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
11704  * done in the sqlite3 library.
11705  * See also
11706  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
11707  * POSIX specification
11708  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
11709  */
11710 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
11711   struct flock fl;
11712   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
11713   unlink(name);
11714   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
11715   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
11716
11717   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
11718   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
11719   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
11720   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
11721   fl.l_len    = 1;
11722   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
11723   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
11724
11725   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
11726   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
11727   fl.l_len    = 510;
11728   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
11729   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
11730
11731   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
11732   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
11733   fl.l_len    = 1;
11734   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
11735   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
11736
11737   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
11738   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
11739   fl.l_len    = 1;
11740   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
11741   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
11742
11743   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
11744   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
11745   fl.l_len    = 510;
11746   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
11747
11748   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
11749   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
11750   fl.l_len    = 2;
11751   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
11752   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
11753
11754   close(fd);
11755   return 0;
11756 }
11757
11758 /*
11759  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
11760  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
11761  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
11762  * slowing down file operations.
11763  */
11764 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
11765 #define LEVELS 5
11766   char *path = strdup("test");
11767   char *dirs[LEVELS];
11768   int level;
11769   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
11770   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
11771     char *newpath = NULL;
11772     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
11773       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
11774              path, strerror(errno));
11775       break;
11776     }
11777     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
11778     free(path);
11779     path = newpath;
11780   }
11781   return 0;
11782 }
11783
11784 /*
11785  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
11786  * KDE.
11787  */
11788 int test_symlinks(void) {
11789   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
11790   unlink("symlink");
11791   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
11792     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
11793   return 0;
11794 }
11795
11796 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
11797   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
11798   test_symlinks();
11799   test_subdirectory_creation();
11800 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
11801   test_sqlite_open();
11802 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
11803   test_gcompris_locking();
11804   return 0;
11805 }
11806 </pre>
11807
11808 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
11809 this:</p>
11810
11811 <pre>
11812 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
11813 info: testing symlink creation
11814 info: testing subdirectory creation
11815 info: sqlite worked
11816 info: testing fcntl locking
11817   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
11818   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
11819   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
11820   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
11821   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
11822   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
11823 </pre>
11824
11825 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
11826 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
11827 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
11828 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
11829 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
11830 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
11831 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
11832 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
11833
11834 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
11835 it. :)</p>
11836
11837 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
11838 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
11839 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
11840
11841       </div>
11842       <div class="tags">
11843
11844
11845         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>.
11846
11847
11848       </div>
11849     </div>
11850     <div class="padding"></div>
11851
11852     <div class="entry">
11853       <div class="title">
11854         <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>
11855       </div>
11856       <div class="date">
11857          7th August 2010
11858       </div>
11859       <div class="body">
11860         <p>A few days ago, I
11861 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
11862 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
11863 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
11864 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
11865 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
11866 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
11867 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
11868 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
11869 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
11870
11871 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
11872 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
11873 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
11874 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
11875 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
11876 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
11877 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
11878 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
11879 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
11880 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
11881 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
11882 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
11883 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
11884 gave it a IP address.</p>
11885
11886 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
11887 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
11888 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
11889 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
11890 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
11891 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
11892 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
11893 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
11894
11895 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
11896 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
11897 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
11898 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
11899 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
11900 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
11901
11902 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
11903 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
11904 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
11905 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
11906 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
11907 with UID and GID values.</p>
11908
11909 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
11910 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11911
11912       </div>
11913       <div class="tags">
11914
11915
11916         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>.
11917
11918
11919       </div>
11920     </div>
11921     <div class="padding"></div>
11922
11923     <div class="entry">
11924       <div class="title">
11925         <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>
11926       </div>
11927       <div class="date">
11928          3rd August 2010
11929       </div>
11930       <div class="body">
11931         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
11932 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
11933 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
11934 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
11935 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
11936 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
11937 servers.</p>
11938
11939 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
11940 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
11941 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
11942 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
11943 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
11944 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
11945 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
11946 .uio.no.</p>
11947
11948 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
11949 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
11950 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
11951 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
11952 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
11953 university servers.</p>
11954
11955 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
11956 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
11957 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
11958 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
11959 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
11960 uses.</p>
11961
11962       </div>
11963       <div class="tags">
11964
11965
11966         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>.
11967
11968
11969       </div>
11970     </div>
11971     <div class="padding"></div>
11972
11973     <div class="entry">
11974       <div class="title">
11975         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
11976       </div>
11977       <div class="date">
11978         27th July 2010
11979       </div>
11980       <div class="body">
11981         <p>I discovered this while doing
11982 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
11983 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
11984 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
11985 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
11986 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
11987
11988 <p>An example is from todays
11989 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
11990 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
11991 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
11992 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
11993 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
11994 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
11995 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
11996
11997 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
11998
11999 <blockquote><pre>
12000 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
12001  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
12002   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
12003 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
12004  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
12005 </pre></blockquote>
12006
12007 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
12008 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
12009 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
12010 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
12011 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
12012 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
12013 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
12014 of dependency loops.</p>
12015
12016 <p>Thanks to
12017 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
12018 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
12019 dependencies
12020 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
12021 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
12022
12023 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
12024 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
12025 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
12026 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
12027 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
12028 it.</p>
12029
12030       </div>
12031       <div class="tags">
12032
12033
12034         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>.
12035
12036
12037       </div>
12038     </div>
12039     <div class="padding"></div>
12040
12041     <div class="entry">
12042       <div class="title">
12043         <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>
12044       </div>
12045       <div class="date">
12046         27th July 2010
12047       </div>
12048       <div class="body">
12049         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
12050 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
12051 completed.</p>
12052
12053 <blockquote>
12054 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
12055 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
12056 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
12057 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
12058 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
12059 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
12060 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
12061 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
12062
12063 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
12064 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
12065 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
12066
12067 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
12068 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
12069 much.</p>
12070
12071 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
12072
12073 <ul>
12074 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
12075 <ul>
12076   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
12077          combination with some new artwork
12078   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
12079   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
12080   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
12081   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
12082   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
12083   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
12084   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
12085   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
12086   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
12087 </ul></li>
12088 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
12089     Enabled for:
12090 <ul>
12091   <li>PAM
12092   <li>LDAP
12093   <li>IMAP
12094   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
12095 </ul>
12096 </li>
12097 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
12098 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
12099     fetched from LDAP.</li>
12100 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
12101 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
12102 </ul>
12103 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
12104
12105 <ul>
12106 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
12107     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
12108     for testing.</li>
12109 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
12110     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
12111     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
12112 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
12113 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
12114 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
12115 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
12116     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
12117 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
12118     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
12119     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
12120 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
12121     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
12122     and help out with translations.</li>
12123 </ul>
12124
12125 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
12126
12127 <ul>
12128 <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>
12129 <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>
12130 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
12131 </ul>
12132 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
12133
12134 <ul>
12135 <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>
12136 <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>
12137 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
12138 </ul>
12139
12140 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
12141 get closer to the final release.</p>
12142
12143 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
12144
12145 <ul>
12146 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
12147 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
12148 </ul>
12149
12150 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
12151 <ul>
12152 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
12153 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
12154 </ul>
12155 <p>How to report bugs:
12156 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
12157
12158 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
12159 </blockquote>
12160
12161       </div>
12162       <div class="tags">
12163
12164
12165         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>.
12166
12167
12168       </div>
12169     </div>
12170     <div class="padding"></div>
12171
12172     <div class="entry">
12173       <div class="title">
12174         <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>
12175       </div>
12176       <div class="date">
12177         25th July 2010
12178       </div>
12179       <div class="body">
12180         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
12181 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
12182 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
12183 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
12184 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
12185
12186 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
12187 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
12188 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
12189 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
12190 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
12191 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
12192 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
12193
12194 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
12195 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
12196 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
12197 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
12198 up. :)</p>
12199
12200 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
12201 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
12202 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
12203
12204 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
12205 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
12206 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
12207 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
12208 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
12209 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
12210 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
12211 release another day.</p>
12212
12213 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
12214 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
12215
12216       </div>
12217       <div class="tags">
12218
12219
12220         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>.
12221
12222
12223       </div>
12224     </div>
12225     <div class="padding"></div>
12226
12227     <div class="entry">
12228       <div class="title">
12229         <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>
12230       </div>
12231       <div class="date">
12232         18th July 2010
12233       </div>
12234       <div class="body">
12235         <p>Thanks to
12236 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
12237 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
12238 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
12239 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
12240 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
12241 only available from the development server, until more experience is
12242 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
12243
12244 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
12245 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
12246 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
12247 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
12248 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
12249 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
12250 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
12251
12252       </div>
12253       <div class="tags">
12254
12255
12256         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>.
12257
12258
12259       </div>
12260     </div>
12261     <div class="padding"></div>
12262
12263     <div class="entry">
12264       <div class="title">
12265         <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>
12266       </div>
12267       <div class="date">
12268         17th July 2010
12269       </div>
12270       <div class="body">
12271         <p>This is a
12272 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
12273 on my
12274 <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
12275 work</a> on
12276 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
12277 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
12278
12279 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
12280 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
12281 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
12282 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
12283
12284 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
12285 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
12286 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
12287
12288 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
12289
12290 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
12291 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
12292 the web.
12293
12294 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
12295 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
12296 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
12297 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
12298 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
12299 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
12300
12301 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
12302 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
12303 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
12304 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
12305 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
12306 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
12307 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
12308 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
12309 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
12310 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
12311 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
12312 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
12313 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
12314 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
12315 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
12316 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
12317
12318 <blockquote><pre>
12319 ldapsearch -h ldap \
12320   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
12321   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
12322   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
12323   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
12324   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
12325   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
12326
12327 ldapsearch -h ldap \
12328   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
12329   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
12330   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
12331   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
12332   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
12333 </pre></blockquote>
12334
12335 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
12336 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
12337 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
12338 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12339 also exist.</p>
12340
12341 <blockquote><pre>
12342 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12343 objectclass: top
12344 objectclass: dnsdomain
12345 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
12346 dc: tjener
12347 arecord: 10.0.2.2
12348 associateddomain: tjener.intern
12349
12350 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12351 objectclass: top
12352 objectclass: dnsdomain2
12353 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
12354 dc: 2
12355 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
12356 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
12357 </pre></blockquote>
12358
12359 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
12360 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
12361 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
12362 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
12363 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
12364 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
12365 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
12366 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
12367 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
12368 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
12369 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
12370 instead.</p>
12371
12372 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
12373 like this:</p>
12374
12375 <blockquote><pre>
12376 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
12377   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
12378   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
12379   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
12380   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
12381   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
12382
12383 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
12384   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
12385 </pre></blockquote>
12386
12387 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
12388 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
12389 reverse lookups.</p>
12390
12391 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
12392 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
12393 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
12394 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
12395
12396 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
12397 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
12398 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
12399
12400 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
12401 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
12402 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
12403 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
12404 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
12405
12406 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
12407 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
12408 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
12409 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
12410 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
12411
12412 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
12413 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
12414 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
12415 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
12416 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
12417 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
12418
12419 <blockquote><pre>
12420 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
12421     SUP top
12422     AUXILIARY
12423     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
12424           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
12425           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
12426           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
12427           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
12428     ))
12429 </pre></blockquote>
12430
12431 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
12432 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
12433 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
12434 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
12435 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
12436 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
12437
12438 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
12439
12440 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
12441 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
12442 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
12443 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
12444 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
12445
12446 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
12447 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
12448 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
12449 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
12450
12451 <blockquote><pre>
12452 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
12453 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
12454 </pre></blockquote>
12455
12456 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
12457 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
12458 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
12459 search result is this entry:</p>
12460
12461 <blockquote><pre>
12462 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12463 cn: dhcp
12464 objectClass: top
12465 objectClass: dhcpServer
12466 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12467 </pre></blockquote>
12468
12469 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
12470 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
12471 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
12472 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
12473 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
12474 The search result is this entry:</p>
12475
12476 <blockquote><pre>
12477 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12478 cn: DHCP Config
12479 objectClass: top
12480 objectClass: dhcpService
12481 objectClass: dhcpOptions
12482 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12483 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
12484 dhcpStatements: authoritative
12485 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
12486 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
12487 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
12488 </pre></blockquote>
12489
12490 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
12491 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
12492 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
12493 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
12494 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
12495 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
12496 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
12497 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
12498 related computer objects.</p>
12499
12500 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
12501 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
12502 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
12503 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
12504 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
12505 like:</p>
12506
12507 <blockquote><pre>
12508 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12509 cn: hostname
12510 objectClass: top
12511 objectClass: dhcpHost
12512 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
12513 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
12514 </pre></blockquote>
12515
12516 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
12517 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
12518 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
12519 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
12520 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
12521 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
12522 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
12523 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
12524 structural object class.
12525
12526 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
12527
12528 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
12529 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
12530 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
12531 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
12532 in the configuration.</p>
12533
12534 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
12535 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
12536 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
12537 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
12538 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
12539 structure.</p>
12540
12541 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
12542 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
12543
12544 <blockquote><pre>
12545 ou=services
12546   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
12547     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
12548     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
12549       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
12550         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
12551     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
12552       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
12553         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
12554     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
12555       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
12556 </pre></blockquote>
12557
12558 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
12559 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
12560 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
12561 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
12562
12563 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
12564 like this:</p>
12565
12566 <blockquote><pre>
12567 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12568 dc: hostname
12569 objectClass: top
12570 objectClass: dhcpHost
12571 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
12572 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
12573 associateddomain: hostname.intern
12574 arecord: 10.11.12.13
12575 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
12576 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
12577 </pre></blockquote>
12578
12579 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
12580 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
12581 auxiliary object class.</p>
12582
12583       </div>
12584       <div class="tags">
12585
12586
12587         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>.
12588
12589
12590       </div>
12591     </div>
12592     <div class="padding"></div>
12593
12594     <div class="entry">
12595       <div class="title">
12596         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
12597       </div>
12598       <div class="date">
12599         14th July 2010
12600       </div>
12601       <div class="body">
12602         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
12603 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
12604 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
12605 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
12606 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
12607
12608 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
12609 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
12610
12611 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
12612 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
12613 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
12614 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
12615 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
12616 to a slave DNS server.</p>
12617
12618 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
12619 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
12620 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
12621 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
12622 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
12623 seem to work.</p>
12624
12625 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
12626 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
12627 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
12628 this:</p>
12629
12630 <blockquote><pre>
12631   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12632   cn: hostname
12633   objectClass: dhcphost
12634   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
12635   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
12636   associateddomain: hostname.intern
12637   arecord: 10.11.12.13
12638   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
12639   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
12640   ldapconfigsound: Y
12641 </pre></blockquote>
12642
12643 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
12644 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
12645 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
12646 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
12647
12648 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
12649 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
12650 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
12651 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
12652 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
12653 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
12654 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
12655 might be a good place to put it.</p>
12656
12657 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
12658 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
12659
12660       </div>
12661       <div class="tags">
12662
12663
12664         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>.
12665
12666
12667       </div>
12668     </div>
12669     <div class="padding"></div>
12670
12671     <div class="entry">
12672       <div class="title">
12673         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
12674       </div>
12675       <div class="date">
12676         11th July 2010
12677       </div>
12678       <div class="body">
12679         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
12680 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
12681 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
12682 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
12683
12684 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
12685 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
12686 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
12687 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
12688 LTSP clients.</p>
12689
12690 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
12691 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
12692 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
12693
12694 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
12695 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
12696 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
12697
12698 <blockquote><pre>
12699 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
12700 #
12701 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
12702 #
12703 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
12704 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
12705 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
12706 #
12707 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
12708 # existence of attribute names.
12709 #
12710 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
12711 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
12712 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
12713 #
12714 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
12715 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
12716 #
12717 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
12718 #     SUP top
12719 #     AUXILIARY
12720 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
12721
12722 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
12723 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
12724     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
12725     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
12726         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
12727         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
12728             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
12729             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
12730             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
12731             # bass value on to clients
12732             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
12733         done
12734     done
12735 fi
12736 </pre></blockquote>
12737
12738 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
12739 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
12740 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
12741 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
12742 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
12743
12744 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
12745 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
12746
12747 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
12748 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
12749 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
12750 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
12751 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
12752 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
12753
12754       </div>
12755       <div class="tags">
12756
12757
12758         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>.
12759
12760
12761       </div>
12762     </div>
12763     <div class="padding"></div>
12764
12765     <div class="entry">
12766       <div class="title">
12767         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
12768       </div>
12769       <div class="date">
12770          9th July 2010
12771       </div>
12772       <div class="body">
12773         <p>Since
12774 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
12775 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
12776 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
12777 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
12778 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
12779 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
12780 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
12781 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
12782 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
12783 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
12784 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
12785 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
12786 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
12787
12788       </div>
12789       <div class="tags">
12790
12791
12792         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>.
12793
12794
12795       </div>
12796     </div>
12797     <div class="padding"></div>
12798
12799     <div class="entry">
12800       <div class="title">
12801         <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>
12802       </div>
12803       <div class="date">
12804          3rd July 2010
12805       </div>
12806       <div class="body">
12807         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
12808 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
12809 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
12810 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
12811 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
12812 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
12813 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
12814 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
12815
12816 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
12817 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
12818 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
12819 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
12820 publish the difference.</p>
12821
12822 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12823
12824 <blockquote><p>
12825   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
12826   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
12827   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
12828   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
12829   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
12830   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
12831   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
12832   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
12833 </p></blockquote>
12834
12835 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12836
12837 <blockquote><p>
12838   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
12839   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
12840   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
12841   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
12842   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
12843   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
12844   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
12845   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
12846   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
12847   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
12848   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
12849   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
12850   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
12851   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
12852   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
12853   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
12854   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
12855   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
12856   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
12857   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
12858 </p></blockquote>
12859
12860 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12861
12862 <blockquote><p>
12863   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
12864   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
12865   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
12866   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
12867   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
12868   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
12869   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
12870   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
12871   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
12872   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
12873   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
12874   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
12875   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
12876   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
12877   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
12878   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
12879   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
12880   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
12881   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
12882   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
12883   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
12884 </p></blockquote>
12885
12886 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12887
12888 <blockquote><p>
12889   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
12890   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
12891   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
12892 </p></blockquote>
12893
12894 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
12895 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
12896 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
12897 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
12898 the difference somewhat.
12899
12900       </div>
12901       <div class="tags">
12902
12903
12904         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>.
12905
12906
12907       </div>
12908     </div>
12909     <div class="padding"></div>
12910
12911     <div class="entry">
12912       <div class="title">
12913         <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>
12914       </div>
12915       <div class="date">
12916          1st July 2010
12917       </div>
12918       <div class="body">
12919         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
12920 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
12921 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
12922 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
12923 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
12924 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
12925 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
12926 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
12927 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
12928
12929 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
12930
12931 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
12932 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
12933 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
12934 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
12935 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
12936 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
12937 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
12938 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
12939 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
12940 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
12941 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
12942 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
12943 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
12944 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
12945 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
12946
12947 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
12948
12949 <blockquote><pre>
12950 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
12951 </pre></blockquote>
12952
12953 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
12954 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
12955 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
12956 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
12957 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
12958 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
12959 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
12960 on how to get this working.</p>
12961
12962 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
12963 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
12964 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
12965 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
12966 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
12967 instructions I found in the
12968 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
12969 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
12970
12971 <blockquote><pre>
12972         debug-level             0
12973         reload-count            unlimited
12974         paranoia                no
12975
12976         enable-cache            passwd          yes
12977         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
12978         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
12979         suggested-size          passwd          211
12980         check-files             passwd          yes
12981         persistent              passwd          yes
12982         shared                  passwd          yes
12983         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
12984         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
12985
12986         enable-cache            group           yes
12987         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
12988         negative-time-to-live   group           20
12989         suggested-size          group           211
12990         check-files             group           yes
12991         persistent              group           yes
12992         shared                  group           yes
12993         max-db-size             group           33554432
12994         auto-propagate          group           yes
12995
12996         enable-cache            hosts           no
12997         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
12998         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
12999         suggested-size          hosts           211
13000         check-files             hosts           yes
13001         persistent              hosts           yes
13002         shared                  hosts           yes
13003         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
13004
13005         enable-cache            services        yes
13006         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
13007         negative-time-to-live   services        20
13008         suggested-size          services        211
13009         check-files             services        yes
13010         persistent              services        yes
13011         shared                  services        yes
13012         max-db-size             services        33554432
13013 </pre></blockquote>
13014
13015 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
13016 automatically like the one provided in
13017 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
13018 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
13019 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
13020 look like this:</p>
13021
13022 <blockquote><pre>
13023 passwd:         files ldap
13024 group:          files ldap
13025 shadow:         files ldap
13026 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
13027 networks:       files
13028 protocols:      files
13029 services:       files
13030 ethers:         files
13031 rpc:            files
13032 netgroup:       files ldap
13033 </pre></blockquote>
13034
13035 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
13036 shadow and netgroup.</p>
13037
13038 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
13039 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
13040 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
13041 attributes cached.
13042
13043 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
13044   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
13045
13046 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
13047 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
13048 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
13049 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
13050 discovered sssd.</p>
13051
13052 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
13053
13054 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
13055 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
13056 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
13057 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
13058 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
13059 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
13060 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
13061 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
13062 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
13063 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
13064 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
13065 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
13066 version 1.2 is now in testing.
13067
13068 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
13069 roaming setup I want</p>
13070
13071 <blockquote><pre>
13072 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
13073 </pre></blockquote>
13074
13075 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
13076 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
13077
13078 <blockquote><pre>
13079 [sssd]
13080 config_file_version = 2
13081 reconnection_retries = 3
13082 sbus_timeout = 30
13083 services = nss, pam
13084 domains = INTERN
13085
13086 [nss]
13087 filter_groups = root
13088 filter_users = root
13089 reconnection_retries = 3
13090
13091 [pam]
13092 reconnection_retries = 3
13093
13094 [domain/INTERN]
13095 enumerate = false
13096 cache_credentials = true
13097
13098 id_provider = ldap
13099 auth_provider = ldap
13100 chpass_provider = ldap
13101
13102 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
13103 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13104 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
13105 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
13106 </pre></blockquote>
13107
13108 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
13109 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
13110
13111 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
13112 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
13113 modify it manually.</p>
13114
13115 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13116 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13117
13118       </div>
13119       <div class="tags">
13120
13121
13122         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>.
13123
13124
13125       </div>
13126     </div>
13127     <div class="padding"></div>
13128
13129     <div class="entry">
13130       <div class="title">
13131         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
13132       </div>
13133       <div class="date">
13134         28th June 2010
13135       </div>
13136       <div class="body">
13137         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
13138 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
13139 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
13140 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
13141 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
13142 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
13143 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
13144 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
13145 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
13146 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
13147
13148 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
13149 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
13150 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
13151 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
13152 released.</p>
13153
13154 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
13155 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
13156 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
13157 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
13158
13159 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
13160 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13161
13162 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
13163 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
13164 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
13165 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
13166 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
13167
13168       </div>
13169       <div class="tags">
13170
13171
13172         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>.
13173
13174
13175       </div>
13176     </div>
13177     <div class="padding"></div>
13178
13179     <div class="entry">
13180       <div class="title">
13181         <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>
13182       </div>
13183       <div class="date">
13184         24th June 2010
13185       </div>
13186       <div class="body">
13187         <p>A while back, I
13188 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
13189 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
13190 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
13191 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
13192
13193 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
13194 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
13195 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
13196 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
13197
13198 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
13199 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
13200 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
13201 Debian Edu.</p>
13202
13203 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
13204 the
13205 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
13206 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
13207 available today from IETF.</p>
13208
13209 <pre>
13210 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
13211 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
13212 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
13213  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
13214         NAME 'dhcpHost'
13215         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
13216 -       SUP top
13217 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
13218         MUST cn
13219         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
13220         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
13221 </pre>
13222
13223 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
13224 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
13225 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
13226
13227 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13228 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13229
13230       </div>
13231       <div class="tags">
13232
13233
13234         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>.
13235
13236
13237       </div>
13238     </div>
13239     <div class="padding"></div>
13240
13241     <div class="entry">
13242       <div class="title">
13243         <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>
13244       </div>
13245       <div class="date">
13246         16th June 2010
13247       </div>
13248       <div class="body">
13249         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
13250 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
13251 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
13252 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
13253 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
13254 this:
13255
13256 <blockquote><pre>
13257 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
13258 tasksel --new-install
13259 </pre></blockquote>
13260
13261 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
13262 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
13263 any output what so ever.
13264
13265 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
13266 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
13267 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
13268 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
13269 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
13270 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
13271 code like this:
13272
13273 <blockquote><pre>
13274 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
13275 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
13276 $cmd
13277 </pre></blockquote>
13278
13279 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
13280 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
13281 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
13282 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
13283 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
13284 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
13285 installation.</p>
13286
13287 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
13288 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
13289 like this.</p>
13290
13291       </div>
13292       <div class="tags">
13293
13294
13295         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>.
13296
13297
13298       </div>
13299     </div>
13300     <div class="padding"></div>
13301
13302     <div class="entry">
13303       <div class="title">
13304         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
13305       </div>
13306       <div class="date">
13307         13th June 2010
13308       </div>
13309       <div class="body">
13310         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
13311 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
13312 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
13313 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
13314 pages.</p>
13315
13316 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
13317 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
13318 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
13319 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
13320 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
13321 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
13322 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
13323 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
13324 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
13325 see how the project is doing.</p>
13326
13327 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
13328 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
13329 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
13330 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
13331 Windows.  This is great.</p>
13332
13333       </div>
13334       <div class="tags">
13335
13336
13337         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>.
13338
13339
13340       </div>
13341     </div>
13342     <div class="padding"></div>
13343
13344     <div class="entry">
13345       <div class="title">
13346         <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>
13347       </div>
13348       <div class="date">
13349         13th June 2010
13350       </div>
13351       <div class="body">
13352         <p>My
13353 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
13354 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
13355 finally made the upgrade logs available from
13356 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
13357 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
13358 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
13359 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
13360
13361 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
13362 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
13363 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
13364 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
13365 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
13366 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
13367 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
13368 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
13369
13370 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
13371 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
13372 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
13373 too surprising.</p>
13374
13375 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
13376 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
13377 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
13378 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
13379 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
13380 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
13381 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
13382 continue.</p>
13383
13384 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
13385 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
13386   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
13387   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
13388   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
13389   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
13390   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
13391   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
13392   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
13393   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
13394   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
13395   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
13396   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
13397   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
13398   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
13399   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
13400   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
13401   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
13402   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
13403   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
13404   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
13405   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
13406   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
13407   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
13408   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
13409   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
13410   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
13411   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
13412   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
13413   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
13414
13415 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
13416
13417 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
13418   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
13419   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
13420   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
13421   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
13422   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
13423   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
13424   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
13425   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
13426   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
13427   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
13428   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
13429   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
13430   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
13431   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
13432   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
13433   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
13434   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
13435   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
13436   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
13437   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
13438   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
13439   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
13440   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
13441   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
13442   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
13443   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
13444   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
13445   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
13446   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
13447   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
13448   zip</p>
13449
13450 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
13451
13452 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
13453   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
13454   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
13455   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
13456   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
13457   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
13458   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
13459   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
13460   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
13461   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
13462   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
13463   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
13464   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
13465   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
13466   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
13467   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
13468   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
13469   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
13470   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
13471   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
13472   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
13473   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
13474   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
13475   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
13476   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
13477   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
13478   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
13479   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
13480
13481 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
13482 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
13483   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
13484   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
13485   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
13486   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
13487   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
13488   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
13489   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
13490   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
13491   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
13492   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
13493   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
13494   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
13495   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
13496   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
13497   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
13498   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
13499   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
13500   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
13501   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
13502   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
13503   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
13504   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
13505   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
13506   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
13507   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
13508   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
13509   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
13510   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
13511   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
13512   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
13513   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
13514   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
13515   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
13516   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
13517   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
13518   xulrunner-1.9</p>
13519
13520
13521       </div>
13522       <div class="tags">
13523
13524
13525         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>.
13526
13527
13528       </div>
13529     </div>
13530     <div class="padding"></div>
13531
13532     <div class="entry">
13533       <div class="title">
13534         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
13535       </div>
13536       <div class="date">
13537         11th June 2010
13538       </div>
13539       <div class="body">
13540         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
13541 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
13542 have been discovered and reported in the process
13543 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
13544 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
13545 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
13546 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
13547 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
13548
13549 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
13550 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
13551 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
13552 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
13553 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
13554 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
13555
13556 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
13557 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
13558 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
13559 is created.  The bug report
13560 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
13561 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
13562 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
13563 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
13564 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
13565 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
13566 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
13567 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
13568 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
13569 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
13570 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
13571 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
13572 Debian Squeeze.</p>
13573
13574 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
13575 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
13576 trick:</p>
13577
13578 <blockquote><pre>
13579 #!/bin/sh
13580 set -ex
13581
13582 if [ "$1" ] ; then
13583     desktop=$1
13584 else
13585     desktop=gnome
13586 fi
13587
13588 from=lenny
13589 to=squeeze
13590
13591 exec &lt; /dev/null
13592 unset LANG
13593 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
13594 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
13595 fuser -mv .
13596 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
13597 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
13598 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
13599 #!/bin/sh
13600 exit 101
13601 EOF
13602 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
13603 exit_cleanup() {
13604     umount $tmpdir/proc
13605 }
13606 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
13607 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
13608 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
13609
13610 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
13611
13612 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
13613 # to return the correct answers.
13614 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
13615     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
13616
13617 # Include the desktop and laptop task
13618 for test in desktop laptop ; do
13619     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
13620 #!/bin/sh
13621 exit 2
13622 EOF
13623     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
13624 done
13625
13626 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
13627 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
13628 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
13629 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
13630
13631 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
13632 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
13633 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
13634 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
13635 fuser -mv
13636 </pre></blockquote>
13637
13638 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
13639 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
13640 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
13641 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
13642 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
13643 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
13644
13645 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
13646 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
13647 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
13648 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
13649 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
13650 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
13651 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
13652
13653 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
13654 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
13655 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
13656 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
13657 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
13658 packages.</p>
13659
13660       </div>
13661       <div class="tags">
13662
13663
13664         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>.
13665
13666
13667       </div>
13668     </div>
13669     <div class="padding"></div>
13670
13671     <div class="entry">
13672       <div class="title">
13673         <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>
13674       </div>
13675       <div class="date">
13676          6th June 2010
13677       </div>
13678       <div class="body">
13679         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
13680 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
13681 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
13682 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
13683 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
13684 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
13685 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
13686
13687 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
13688 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
13689 COLUMNS):</p>
13690
13691 <blockquote><pre>
13692 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
13693 previous=N
13694 PREVLEVEL=
13695 RUNLEVEL=
13696 runlevel=S
13697 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
13698 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
13699 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
13700 </pre></blockquote>
13701
13702 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
13703 script.</p>
13704
13705 <blockquote><pre>
13706 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
13707 previous=N
13708 PREVLEVEL=N
13709 RUNLEVEL=S
13710 runlevel=S
13711 </pre></blockquote>
13712
13713 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
13714 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
13715 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
13716
13717 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
13718 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
13719 choice.</p>
13720
13721       </div>
13722       <div class="tags">
13723
13724
13725         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>.
13726
13727
13728       </div>
13729     </div>
13730     <div class="padding"></div>
13731
13732     <div class="entry">
13733       <div class="title">
13734         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
13735       </div>
13736       <div class="date">
13737          6th June 2010
13738       </div>
13739       <div class="body">
13740         <p>Via the
13741 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
13742 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
13743 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
13744 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
13745 following the standards wars of today.</p>
13746
13747       </div>
13748       <div class="tags">
13749
13750
13751         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>.
13752
13753
13754       </div>
13755     </div>
13756     <div class="padding"></div>
13757
13758     <div class="entry">
13759       <div class="title">
13760         <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>
13761       </div>
13762       <div class="date">
13763          3rd June 2010
13764       </div>
13765       <div class="body">
13766         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
13767 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
13768 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
13769 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
13770 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
13771
13772 <blockquote><pre>
13773 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
13774   vendor                    count
13775   Dell Computer Corporation     1
13776     PowerEdge 1750              1
13777   IBM                           1
13778     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
13779   Intel                         2
13780   [no-dmi-info]                 3
13781 maintainer:~#
13782 </pre></blockquote>
13783
13784 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
13785 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
13786 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
13787 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
13788 option to list the individual machines.</p>
13789
13790 <p>A larger list is
13791 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
13792 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
13793 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
13794 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
13795 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
13796 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
13797 collector.</p>
13798
13799       </div>
13800       <div class="tags">
13801
13802
13803         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>.
13804
13805
13806       </div>
13807     </div>
13808     <div class="padding"></div>
13809
13810     <div class="entry">
13811       <div class="title">
13812         <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>
13813       </div>
13814       <div class="date">
13815          1st June 2010
13816       </div>
13817       <div class="body">
13818         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
13819 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
13820 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
13821 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
13822 wait.</p>
13823
13824 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
13825 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
13826 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
13827 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
13828 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
13829 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
13830
13831 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
13832 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
13833 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
13834 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
13835 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
13836 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
13837 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
13838 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
13839
13840 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
13841
13842       </div>
13843       <div class="tags">
13844
13845
13846         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>.
13847
13848
13849       </div>
13850     </div>
13851     <div class="padding"></div>
13852
13853     <div class="entry">
13854       <div class="title">
13855         <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>
13856       </div>
13857       <div class="date">
13858         27th May 2010
13859       </div>
13860       <div class="body">
13861         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
13862 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
13863 issues are known and should be solved:
13864
13865 <p><ul>
13866
13867 <li>The wicd package seen to
13868 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
13869 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
13870 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
13871 seem to be on the case.</li>
13872
13873 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
13874 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
13875 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
13876 maintainer is on the case.</li>
13877
13878 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
13879 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
13880 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
13881 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
13882 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
13883 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
13884 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
13885 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
13886
13887 </ul></p>
13888
13889 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
13890 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
13891 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
13892 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
13893
13894 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
13895 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
13896 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
13897 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
13898
13899 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
13900
13901       </div>
13902       <div class="tags">
13903
13904
13905         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>.
13906
13907
13908       </div>
13909     </div>
13910     <div class="padding"></div>
13911
13912     <div class="entry">
13913       <div class="title">
13914         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
13915       </div>
13916       <div class="date">
13917         22nd May 2010
13918       </div>
13919       <div class="body">
13920         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
13921 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
13922 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
13923 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
13924
13925 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
13926 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
13927 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
13928 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
13929 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
13930 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
13931 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
13932 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
13933 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
13934 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
13935 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
13936 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
13937 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
13938 going to work.</p>
13939
13940 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
13941 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
13942 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
13943 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
13944 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
13945 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
13946 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
13947 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
13948 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
13949 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
13950 Edu.</p>
13951
13952 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
13953 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
13954 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
13955 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
13956 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
13957 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
13958
13959 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
13960 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
13961
13962       </div>
13963       <div class="tags">
13964
13965
13966         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>.
13967
13968
13969       </div>
13970     </div>
13971     <div class="padding"></div>
13972
13973     <div class="entry">
13974       <div class="title">
13975         <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>
13976       </div>
13977       <div class="date">
13978         19th May 2010
13979       </div>
13980       <div class="body">
13981         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
13982 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
13983 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
13984 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
13985 into unstable.  The
13986 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
13987 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
13988 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
13989 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
13990 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
13991 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
13992 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
13993
13994 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
13995 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
13996 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
13997 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
13998 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
13999 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
14000 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
14001 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
14002
14003 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
14004 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
14005 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
14006 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
14007 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
14008 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
14009 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
14010
14011 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
14012 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
14013 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
14014 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
14015 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
14016 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
14017 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
14018 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
14019 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
14020 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
14021 on the home directory servers.</p>
14022
14023 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
14024 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
14025 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
14026 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
14027 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
14028 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
14029
14030 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
14031 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14032
14033       </div>
14034       <div class="tags">
14035
14036
14037         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>.
14038
14039
14040       </div>
14041     </div>
14042     <div class="padding"></div>
14043
14044     <div class="entry">
14045       <div class="title">
14046         <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>
14047       </div>
14048       <div class="date">
14049         14th May 2010
14050       </div>
14051       <div class="body">
14052         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
14053 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
14054 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
14055 expected, if I am to believe the
14056 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
14057 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
14058 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
14059 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
14060 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
14061 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
14062 version.</p>
14063
14064 More information about
14065 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
14066 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
14067 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
14068 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
14069
14070 <blockquote><pre>
14071 CONCURRENCY=none
14072 </pre></blockquote>
14073
14074 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
14075 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
14076 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
14077 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
14078
14079       </div>
14080       <div class="tags">
14081
14082
14083         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>.
14084
14085
14086       </div>
14087     </div>
14088     <div class="padding"></div>
14089
14090     <div class="entry">
14091       <div class="title">
14092         <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>
14093       </div>
14094       <div class="date">
14095         14th May 2010
14096       </div>
14097       <div class="body">
14098         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
14099 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
14100 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
14101 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
14102 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
14103 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
14104 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
14105 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
14106
14107 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
14108 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
14109 this on the collector host:</p>
14110
14111 <blockquote><pre>
14112 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
14113 </pre></blockquote>
14114
14115 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
14116 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
14117
14118 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
14119 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
14120 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
14121 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
14122 written yet.</p>
14123
14124       </div>
14125       <div class="tags">
14126
14127
14128         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>.
14129
14130
14131       </div>
14132     </div>
14133     <div class="padding"></div>
14134
14135     <div class="entry">
14136       <div class="title">
14137         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
14138       </div>
14139       <div class="date">
14140         13th May 2010
14141       </div>
14142       <div class="body">
14143         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
14144 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
14145 has been
14146 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
14147
14148 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
14149 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
14150 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
14151 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
14152 based boot system.  Tollef is
14153 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
14154 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
14155 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
14156 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
14157 at the moment do not.</p>
14158
14159 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
14160 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
14161 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
14162 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
14163 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
14164 way forward.</p>
14165
14166 <p>In the mean time, based on the
14167 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
14168 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
14169 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
14170 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
14171 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
14172 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
14173 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
14174 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
14175
14176       </div>
14177       <div class="tags">
14178
14179
14180         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>.
14181
14182
14183       </div>
14184     </div>
14185     <div class="padding"></div>
14186
14187     <div class="entry">
14188       <div class="title">
14189         <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>
14190       </div>
14191       <div class="date">
14192          6th May 2010
14193       </div>
14194       <div class="body">
14195         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
14196 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
14197 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
14198 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
14199 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
14200 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
14201 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
14202
14203 <blockquote><pre>
14204 CONCURRENCY=makefile
14205 </pre></blockquote>
14206
14207 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
14208 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
14209 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
14210 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
14211 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
14212 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
14213 make this happen.</p>
14214
14215 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
14216 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
14217 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
14218 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
14219 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
14220
14221 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
14222 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
14223 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
14224 fix the remaining issues.</p>
14225
14226 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
14227 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
14228 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
14229 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
14230
14231       </div>
14232       <div class="tags">
14233
14234
14235         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>.
14236
14237
14238       </div>
14239     </div>
14240     <div class="padding"></div>
14241
14242     <div class="entry">
14243       <div class="title">
14244         <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>
14245       </div>
14246       <div class="date">
14247          2nd May 2010
14248       </div>
14249       <div class="body">
14250         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
14251 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
14252 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
14253
14254 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
14255 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
14256 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
14257 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
14258 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
14259
14260 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
14261 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
14262
14263 <blockquote><pre>
14264 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
14265 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
14266 Password expires                                        : never
14267 Password inactive                                       : never
14268 Account expires                                         : never
14269 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
14270 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
14271 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
14272 root@tjener:~#
14273 </pre></blockquote>
14274
14275 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
14276 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
14277 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
14278 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
14279 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
14280 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
14281
14282 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
14283 intended:</p>
14284
14285 <blockquote><pre>
14286 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
14287 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
14288 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
14289 Password expires                                        : never
14290 Password inactive                                       : never
14291 Account expires                                         : never
14292 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
14293 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
14294 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
14295 root@tjener:~#
14296 </pre></blockquote>
14297
14298 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
14299 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
14300 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
14301
14302 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
14303 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
14304
14305 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
14306 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14307
14308 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
14309 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
14310 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
14311 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
14312 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
14313 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
14314 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
14315
14316 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
14317 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
14318 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
14319 change.</p>
14320
14321       </div>
14322       <div class="tags">
14323
14324
14325         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>.
14326
14327
14328       </div>
14329     </div>
14330     <div class="padding"></div>
14331
14332     <div class="entry">
14333       <div class="title">
14334         <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>
14335       </div>
14336       <div class="date">
14337         28th April 2010
14338       </div>
14339       <div class="body">
14340         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
14341 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
14342 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
14343 and go.</p>
14344
14345 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
14346 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
14347 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
14348 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
14349
14350 <ul>
14351
14352  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
14353    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
14354    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
14355    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
14356    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
14357    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
14358    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
14359    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
14360    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
14361    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
14362    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
14363    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
14364
14365  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
14366    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
14367    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
14368    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
14369    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
14370    or the Fedora developed
14371    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
14372    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
14373
14374  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
14375    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
14376    directory, using unison.</li>
14377
14378  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
14379    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
14380    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
14381    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
14382    implemented.</li>
14383
14384  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
14385    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
14386
14387  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
14388    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
14389    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
14390
14391 </ul>
14392
14393 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
14394 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
14395 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
14396 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
14397 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
14398 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
14399 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
14400 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
14401 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
14402
14403 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
14404 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14405
14406       </div>
14407       <div class="tags">
14408
14409
14410         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>.
14411
14412
14413       </div>
14414     </div>
14415     <div class="padding"></div>
14416
14417     <div class="entry">
14418       <div class="title">
14419         <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>
14420       </div>
14421       <div class="date">
14422         19th April 2010
14423       </div>
14424       <div class="body">
14425         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
14426 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
14427 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
14428 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
14429 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
14430 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
14431 restrictions on the web, for example from
14432 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
14433 epub-version from
14434 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
14435 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
14436 strongly recommend this book.</p>
14437
14438       </div>
14439       <div class="tags">
14440
14441
14442         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>.
14443
14444
14445       </div>
14446     </div>
14447     <div class="padding"></div>
14448
14449     <div class="entry">
14450       <div class="title">
14451         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
14452       </div>
14453       <div class="date">
14454         14th April 2010
14455       </div>
14456       <div class="body">
14457         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
14458 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
14459 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
14460 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
14461 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
14462 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
14463 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
14464 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
14465 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
14466
14467 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
14468 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
14469 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
14470 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
14471 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
14472
14473 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
14474 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
14475
14476 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
14477 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
14478 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
14479 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
14480 to work properly.</p>
14481
14482 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
14483 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
14484 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
14485 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
14486 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
14487 time.</p>
14488
14489 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
14490 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
14491 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
14492 up in a few days.</p>
14493
14494       </div>
14495       <div class="tags">
14496
14497
14498         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>.
14499
14500
14501       </div>
14502     </div>
14503     <div class="padding"></div>
14504
14505     <div class="entry">
14506       <div class="title">
14507         <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>
14508       </div>
14509       <div class="date">
14510          6th March 2010
14511       </div>
14512       <div class="body">
14513         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
14514 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
14515 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
14516 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
14517 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
14518 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
14519
14520 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
14521 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
14522 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
14523 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
14524
14525 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
14526 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
14527 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
14528 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
14529 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
14530 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
14531
14532       </div>
14533       <div class="tags">
14534
14535
14536         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>.
14537
14538
14539       </div>
14540     </div>
14541     <div class="padding"></div>
14542
14543     <div class="entry">
14544       <div class="title">
14545         <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>
14546       </div>
14547       <div class="date">
14548         11th February 2010
14549       </div>
14550       <div class="body">
14551         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
14552 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
14553 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
14554 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
14555 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
14556 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
14557 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
14558
14559 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
14560
14561 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
14562 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
14563 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
14564 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
14565
14566       </div>
14567       <div class="tags">
14568
14569
14570         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>.
14571
14572
14573       </div>
14574     </div>
14575     <div class="padding"></div>
14576
14577     <div class="entry">
14578       <div class="title">
14579         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
14580       </div>
14581       <div class="date">
14582         27th January 2010
14583       </div>
14584       <div class="body">
14585         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
14586 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
14587 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
14588 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
14589 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
14590 further.</p>
14591
14592 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
14593 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
14594 configured to be a server for the
14595 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
14596 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
14597 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
14598 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
14599 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
14600 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
14601 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
14602 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
14603 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
14604 and Nagios configuration.</p>
14605
14606 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
14607 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
14608 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
14609 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
14610
14611 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
14612 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
14613 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
14614 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
14615 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
14616 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
14617 the machine.</p>
14618
14619 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
14620 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
14621 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
14622 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
14623
14624 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
14625 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
14626 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
14627 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
14628 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
14629 everything is taken care of.</p>
14630
14631       </div>
14632       <div class="tags">
14633
14634
14635         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>.
14636
14637
14638       </div>
14639     </div>
14640     <div class="padding"></div>
14641
14642     <div class="entry">
14643       <div class="title">
14644         <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>
14645       </div>
14646       <div class="date">
14647         12th August 2009
14648       </div>
14649       <div class="body">
14650         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
14651 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
14652 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
14653 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
14654
14655 <table>
14656 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
14657 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
14658 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
14659 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
14660 </table>
14661
14662 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
14663 got these numbers:</p>
14664
14665 <table>
14666 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
14667 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
14668 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
14669 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
14670 </table>
14671
14672 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
14673
14674 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
14675 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
14676 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
14677 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
14678 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
14679
14680
14681 <table>
14682 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
14683 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
14684 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
14685 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
14686 </table>
14687
14688 <p>And with 'site:no':
14689
14690 <table>
14691 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
14692 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
14693 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
14694 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
14695 </table>
14696
14697 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
14698 numbers.</p>
14699
14700       </div>
14701       <div class="tags">
14702
14703
14704         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>.
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/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
14714       </div>
14715       <div class="date">
14716          8th August 2009
14717       </div>
14718       <div class="body">
14719         <p>According to <a
14720 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
14721 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
14722 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
14723 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
14724 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
14725 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
14726 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
14727 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
14728 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
14729 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
14730
14731 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
14732 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
14733 seminar this autumn.</p>
14734
14735       </div>
14736       <div class="tags">
14737
14738
14739         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>.
14740
14741
14742       </div>
14743     </div>
14744     <div class="padding"></div>
14745
14746     <div class="entry">
14747       <div class="title">
14748         <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>
14749       </div>
14750       <div class="date">
14751         27th July 2009
14752       </div>
14753       <div class="body">
14754         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
14755 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
14756 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
14757 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
14758 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
14759 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
14760 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
14761
14762 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
14763 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
14764 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
14765
14766       </div>
14767       <div class="tags">
14768
14769
14770         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>.
14771
14772
14773       </div>
14774     </div>
14775     <div class="padding"></div>
14776
14777     <div class="entry">
14778       <div class="title">
14779         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
14780       </div>
14781       <div class="date">
14782         22nd July 2009
14783       </div>
14784       <div class="body">
14785         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
14786 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
14787 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
14788 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
14789 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
14790 the package up to date.</p>
14791
14792 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
14793 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
14794 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
14795 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
14796 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
14797 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
14798 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
14799 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
14800 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
14801 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
14802 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
14803 working on the future release.</p>
14804
14805 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
14806 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
14807
14808       </div>
14809       <div class="tags">
14810
14811
14812         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>.
14813
14814
14815       </div>
14816     </div>
14817     <div class="padding"></div>
14818
14819     <div class="entry">
14820       <div class="title">
14821         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
14822       </div>
14823       <div class="date">
14824         24th June 2009
14825       </div>
14826       <div class="body">
14827         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
14828 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
14829 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
14830 funded
14831 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
14832 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
14833 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
14834 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
14835 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
14836 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
14837
14838 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
14839 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
14840 boot:</p>
14841
14842 <ul>
14843
14844 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
14845
14846 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
14847    clock is in UTC.</li>
14848
14849 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
14850    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
14851    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
14852
14853 </ul>
14854
14855 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
14856 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
14857 Villegas</a>.
14858
14859 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
14860 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
14861 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
14862 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
14863 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
14864 using this.</p>
14865
14866 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
14867 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
14868 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
14869 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
14870 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
14871 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
14872 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
14873
14874       </div>
14875       <div class="tags">
14876
14877
14878         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>.
14879
14880
14881       </div>
14882     </div>
14883     <div class="padding"></div>
14884
14885     <div class="entry">
14886       <div class="title">
14887         <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>
14888       </div>
14889       <div class="date">
14890          2nd May 2009
14891       </div>
14892       <div class="body">
14893         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
14894 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
14895 do not yet know them.</p>
14896
14897 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
14898 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
14899 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
14900 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
14901 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
14902 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
14903 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
14904 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
14905 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
14906 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
14907 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
14908
14909 <p>The second one is
14910 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
14911 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
14912 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
14913 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
14914 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
14915 and the company behind it is running
14916 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
14917 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
14918 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
14919 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
14920 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
14921 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
14922 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
14923 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
14924
14925 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
14926 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
14927 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
14928 surrounded by today.</p>
14929
14930       </div>
14931       <div class="tags">
14932
14933
14934         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>.
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/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html">No patch is not better than a useless patch</a>
14944       </div>
14945       <div class="date">
14946         28th April 2009
14947       </div>
14948       <div class="body">
14949         <p>Julien Blache
14950 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
14951 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
14952 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
14953 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
14954 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
14955 properties.</p>
14956
14957       </div>
14958       <div class="tags">
14959
14960
14961         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>.
14962
14963
14964       </div>
14965     </div>
14966     <div class="padding"></div>
14967
14968     <div class="entry">
14969       <div class="title">
14970         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
14971       </div>
14972       <div class="date">
14973          5th April 2009
14974       </div>
14975       <div class="body">
14976         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
14977 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
14978 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
14979 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
14980 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
14981 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
14982 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
14983 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
14984
14985 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
14986 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
14987 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
14988   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
14989   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
14990
14991 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
14992 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
14993 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
14994 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
14995
14996 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
14997 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
14998 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
14999 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
15000
15001 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
15002 set -e
15003 URL="$1"
15004 SAVEFILE="$2"
15005 DURATION="$3"
15006 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
15007   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
15008   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
15009 pid=$!
15010 sleep $DURATION
15011 kill $pid
15012 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
15013
15014       </div>
15015       <div class="tags">
15016
15017
15018         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>.
15019
15020
15021       </div>
15022     </div>
15023     <div class="padding"></div>
15024
15025     <div class="entry">
15026       <div class="title">
15027         <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>
15028       </div>
15029       <div class="date">
15030         30th March 2009
15031       </div>
15032       <div class="body">
15033         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
15034 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
15035 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
15036 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
15037 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
15038 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
15039 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
15040 application.</p>
15041
15042 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
15043 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
15044 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
15045 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
15046 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
15047 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
15048 blocked from doing so.</p>
15049
15050 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
15051 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
15052 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
15053 requirements change.</p>
15054
15055 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
15056 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
15057 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
15058
15059       </div>
15060       <div class="tags">
15061
15062
15063         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>.
15064
15065
15066       </div>
15067     </div>
15068     <div class="padding"></div>
15069
15070     <div class="entry">
15071       <div class="title">
15072         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
15073       </div>
15074       <div class="date">
15075         29th March 2009
15076       </div>
15077       <div class="body">
15078         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
15079 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
15080 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
15081 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
15082 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
15083 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
15084 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
15085 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
15086 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
15087 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
15088 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
15089 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
15090 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
15091 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
15092 now. :)</p>
15093
15094       </div>
15095       <div class="tags">
15096
15097
15098         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>.
15099
15100
15101       </div>
15102     </div>
15103     <div class="padding"></div>
15104
15105     <div class="entry">
15106       <div class="title">
15107         <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>
15108       </div>
15109       <div class="date">
15110         29th March 2009
15111       </div>
15112       <div class="body">
15113         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
15114 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
15115 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
15116 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
15117 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
15118 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
15119
15120 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
15121 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
15122 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
15123 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
15124 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
15125 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
15126 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
15127 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
15128 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
15129 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
15130 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
15131 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
15132 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
15133
15134 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
15135 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
15136 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
15137 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
15138
15139 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
15140 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
15141
15142 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
15143 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
15144 new IETF work group?</p>
15145
15146       </div>
15147       <div class="tags">
15148
15149
15150         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>.
15151
15152
15153       </div>
15154     </div>
15155     <div class="padding"></div>
15156
15157     <div class="entry">
15158       <div class="title">
15159         <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>
15160       </div>
15161       <div class="date">
15162         28th February 2009
15163       </div>
15164       <div class="body">
15165         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
15166 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
15167 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
15168 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
15169 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
15170 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
15171 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
15172 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
15173 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
15174 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
15175 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
15176 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
15177 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
15178 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
15179 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
15180 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
15181 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
15182 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
15183 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
15184 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
15185 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
15186 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
15187 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
15188 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
15189 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
15190 machine.</p>
15191
15192 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
15193 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
15194 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
15195 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
15196 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
15197 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
15198 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
15199
15200 <pre>
15201 use LWP::Simple;
15202 use POSIX;
15203 use WWW::Mechanize;
15204 use Date::Parse;
15205 [...]
15206 sub get_support_info {
15207     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
15208     my $str;
15209
15210     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
15211         # fetch website from Dell support
15212         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";
15213         my $webpage = get($url);
15214         return undef unless ($webpage);
15215
15216         my $daysleft = -1;
15217         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
15218         foreach my $line (@lines) {
15219             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
15220             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
15221             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
15222
15223             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
15224             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
15225             my $lastend = "";
15226             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
15227                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
15228
15229                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
15230                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
15231                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
15232                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
15233                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
15234                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
15235                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
15236             }
15237             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
15238             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
15239                 if ($lastend lt $today);
15240         }
15241     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
15242         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
15243         my $url =
15244             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
15245         $mech->get($url);
15246         my $fields = {
15247             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
15248             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
15249             'country' => 'NO',
15250             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
15251             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
15252         };
15253         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
15254                             fields      => $fields );
15255         # Next step is screen scraping
15256         my $content = $mech->content();
15257
15258         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
15259         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
15260         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
15261         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
15262
15263         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
15264
15265         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
15266             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
15267                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
15268             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
15269             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
15270                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
15271             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
15272                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
15273
15274             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
15275
15276             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
15277                 if ($end lt $today);
15278         }
15279     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
15280         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
15281         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
15282         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
15283             my $content =
15284                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
15285             if ($content) {
15286                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
15287                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
15288                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
15289                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
15290
15291                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
15292                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
15293
15294                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
15295
15296                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
15297                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
15298                     if ($end lt $today);
15299             }
15300         }
15301     }
15302     return $str;
15303 }
15304 </pre>
15305
15306 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
15307 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
15308 from dmidecode.</p>
15309
15310 <pre>
15311 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
15312                        "447707-B21");
15313 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
15314 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
15315                        "1234567");
15316 </pre>
15317
15318 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
15319 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
15320
15321 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
15322 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
15323 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
15324 do so.</p>
15325
15326       </div>
15327       <div class="tags">
15328
15329
15330         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>.
15331
15332
15333       </div>
15334     </div>
15335     <div class="padding"></div>
15336
15337     <div class="entry">
15338       <div class="title">
15339         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
15340       </div>
15341       <div class="date">
15342         20th February 2009
15343       </div>
15344       <div class="body">
15345         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
15346 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
15347 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
15348 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
15349 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
15350 the "missing" computer.</p>
15351
15352 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
15353 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
15354 code blocks as defined in the
15355 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
15356 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
15357 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
15358 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
15359 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
15360 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
15361 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
15362 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
15363 codes.</p>
15364
15365 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
15366 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
15367 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
15368 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
15369 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
15370 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
15371
15372 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
15373 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
15374 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
15375 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
15376 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
15377 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
15378 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
15379 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
15380 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
15381 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
15382
15383 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
15384 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
15385 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
15386
15387       </div>
15388       <div class="tags">
15389
15390
15391         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>.
15392
15393
15394       </div>
15395     </div>
15396     <div class="padding"></div>
15397
15398     <div class="entry">
15399       <div class="title">
15400         <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>
15401       </div>
15402       <div class="date">
15403         17th January 2009
15404       </div>
15405       <div class="body">
15406         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
15407 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
15408 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
15409 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
15410 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
15411 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
15412 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
15413 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
15414 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
15415 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
15416 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
15417 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
15418 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
15419 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
15420
15421 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
15422 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
15423 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
15424 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
15425 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
15426 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
15427 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
15428 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
15429 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
15430 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
15431 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
15432 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
15433 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
15434 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
15435 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
15436 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
15437 playing when the download is done.</p>
15438
15439 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
15440 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
15441 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
15442 too.</p>
15443
15444 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
15445 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
15446 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
15447 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
15448
15449       </div>
15450       <div class="tags">
15451
15452
15453         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>.
15454
15455
15456       </div>
15457     </div>
15458     <div class="padding"></div>
15459
15460     <div class="entry">
15461       <div class="title">
15462         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
15463       </div>
15464       <div class="date">
15465         28th December 2008
15466       </div>
15467       <div class="body">
15468         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
15469 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
15470 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
15471 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
15472 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
15473 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
15474 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
15475 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
15476 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
15477 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
15478 source, sink and mixer applications and
15479 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
15480 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
15481 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
15482 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
15483 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
15484 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
15485 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
15486 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
15487 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
15488
15489 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
15490 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
15491 larger stick as well.</p>
15492
15493       </div>
15494       <div class="tags">
15495
15496
15497         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>.
15498
15499
15500       </div>
15501     </div>
15502     <div class="padding"></div>
15503
15504     <div class="entry">
15505       <div class="title">
15506         <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>
15507       </div>
15508       <div class="date">
15509          7th December 2008
15510       </div>
15511       <div class="body">
15512         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
15513 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
15514 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
15515 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
15516 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
15517 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
15518 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
15519 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
15520
15521 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
15522 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
15523 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
15524 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
15525 of these cards.</p>
15526
15527       </div>
15528       <div class="tags">
15529
15530
15531         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>.
15532
15533
15534       </div>
15535     </div>
15536     <div class="padding"></div>
15537
15538     <div class="entry">
15539       <div class="title">
15540         <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>
15541       </div>
15542       <div class="date">
15543         25th November 2008
15544       </div>
15545       <div class="body">
15546         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
15547 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
15548 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
15549 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
15550 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
15551 notes are available on
15552 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
15553 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
15554 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
15555 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
15556 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
15557 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
15558 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
15559 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
15560 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
15561
15562 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
15563 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
15564
15565       </div>
15566       <div class="tags">
15567
15568
15569         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>.
15570
15571
15572       </div>
15573     </div>
15574     <div class="padding"></div>
15575
15576     <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>
15577     <div id="sidebar">
15578
15579
15580
15581 <h2>Archive</h2>
15582 <ul>
15583
15584 <li>2013
15585 <ul>
15586
15587 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
15588
15589 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
15590
15591 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
15592
15593 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
15594
15595 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
15596
15597 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (7)</a></li>
15598
15599 </ul></li>
15600
15601 <li>2012
15602 <ul>
15603
15604 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
15605
15606 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
15607
15608 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
15609
15610 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
15611
15612 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
15613
15614 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
15615
15616 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
15617
15618 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
15619
15620 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
15621
15622 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
15623
15624 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
15625
15626 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
15627
15628 </ul></li>
15629
15630 <li>2011
15631 <ul>
15632
15633 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
15634
15635 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
15636
15637 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
15638
15639 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
15640
15641 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
15642
15643 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15644
15645 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
15646
15647 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
15648
15649 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
15650
15651 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
15652
15653 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15654
15655 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
15656
15657 </ul></li>
15658
15659 <li>2010
15660 <ul>
15661
15662 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
15663
15664 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
15665
15666 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15667
15668 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
15669
15670 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
15671
15672 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
15673
15674 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
15675
15676 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
15677
15678 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
15679
15680 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
15681
15682 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
15683
15684 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
15685
15686 </ul></li>
15687
15688 <li>2009
15689 <ul>
15690
15691 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
15692
15693 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
15694
15695 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
15696
15697 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
15698
15699 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
15700
15701 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
15702
15703 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
15704
15705 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
15706
15707 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15708
15709 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
15710
15711 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15712
15713 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
15714
15715 </ul></li>
15716
15717 <li>2008
15718 <ul>
15719
15720 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
15721
15722 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
15723
15724 </ul></li>
15725
15726 </ul>
15727
15728
15729
15730 <h2>Tags</h2>
15731 <ul>
15732
15733  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
15734
15735  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
15736
15737  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
15738
15739  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
15740
15741  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (7)</a></li>
15742
15743  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
15744
15745  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
15746
15747  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (77)</a></li>
15748
15749  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (133)</a></li>
15750
15751  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
15752
15753  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (9)</a></li>
15754
15755  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
15756
15757  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (200)</a></li>
15758
15759  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
15760
15761  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
15762
15763  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (11)</a></li>
15764
15765  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
15766
15767  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (36)</a></li>
15768
15769  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (6)</a></li>
15770
15771  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
15772
15773  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
15774
15775  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
15776
15777  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
15778
15779  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
15780
15781  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (234)</a></li>
15782
15783  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (152)</a></li>
15784
15785  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (8)</a></li>
15786
15787  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
15788
15789  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (44)</a></li>
15790
15791  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (65)</a></li>
15792
15793  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
15794
15795  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
15796
15797  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
15798
15799  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (7)</a></li>
15800
15801  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
15802
15803  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
15804
15805  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
15806
15807  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (29)</a></li>
15808
15809  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
15810
15811  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
15812
15813  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (43)</a></li>
15814
15815  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
15816
15817  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (7)</a></li>
15818
15819  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (15)</a></li>
15820
15821  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
15822
15823  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (7)</a></li>
15824
15825  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (38)</a></li>
15826
15827  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
15828
15829  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (26)</a></li>
15830
15831 </ul>
15832
15833
15834     </div>
15835     <p style="text-align: right">
15836  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
15837 </p>
15838
15839   </body>
15840 </html>