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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/Sleep_until_morning___home_automation_for_the_kids.html">Sleep until morning - home automation for the kids</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         10th February 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
  32
  33 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
  34 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
  35 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
  36 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
  37 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
  38 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
  39 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
  40 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
  41 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
  42 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
  43 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
  44
  45 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
  46 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
  47 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
  48 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
  49 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
  50 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
  51 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
  52 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
  53 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
  54 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
  55 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
  56 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
  57 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
  58 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
  59 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
  60 ones own
  61 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
  62 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
  63 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
  64 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
  65 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
  66 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
  67 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
  68 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
  69 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
  70 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
  71 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
  72
  73 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
  74 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
  75 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
  76 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
  77 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
  78 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
  79
  80 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
  81 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
  82 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
  83
  84       </div>
  85       <div class="tags">
  86
  87
  88         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
  89
  90
  91       </div>
  92     </div>
  93     <div class="padding"></div>
  94
  95     <div class="entry">
  96       <div class="title">
  97         <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>
  98       </div>
  99       <div class="date">
 100          2nd February 2013
 101       </div>
 102       <div class="body">
 103         <p>My
 104 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
 105 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
 106 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
 107 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
 108 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
 109 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
 110 version too.</p>
 111
 112 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
 113 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
 114 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
 115 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
 116 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
 117 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
 118 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
 119 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
 120
 121 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
 122 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
 123 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
 124 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
 125 it. :)</p>
 126
 127 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 128 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 129 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 130
 131       </div>
 132       <div class="tags">
 133
 134
 135         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>.
 136
 137
 138       </div>
 139     </div>
 140     <div class="padding"></div>
 141
 142     <div class="entry">
 143       <div class="title">
 144         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
 145       </div>
 146       <div class="date">
 147         22nd January 2013
 148       </div>
 149       <div class="body">
 150         <p>Yesterday, I
 151 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
 152 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
 153 pluggable hardware devices, which I
 154 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
 155 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
 156 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
 157 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
 158 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
 159 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
 160 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
 161 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
 162 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
 163 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
 164
 165 <pre>
 166 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
 167 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
 168 </pre>
 169
 170 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
 171 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
 172 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
 173 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
 174
 175 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
 176 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
 177 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
 178 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
 179 word.</p>
 180
 181 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
 182 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
 183 process.</p>
 184
 185 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
 186 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
 187
 188       </div>
 189       <div class="tags">
 190
 191
 192         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>.
 193
 194
 195       </div>
 196     </div>
 197     <div class="padding"></div>
 198
 199     <div class="entry">
 200       <div class="title">
 201         <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>
 202       </div>
 203       <div class="date">
 204         21st January 2013
 205       </div>
 206       <div class="body">
 207         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
 208 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
 209 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
 210 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
 211 it, fetch the
 212 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
 213 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
 214 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
 215 autostart script.</p>
 216
 217 <p>The design is simple:</p>
 218
 219 <ul>
 220
 221 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
 222 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
 223
 224 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
 225 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
 226 initially did.</li>
 227
 228 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
 229 the APT database, a database
 230 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
 231 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
 232
 233 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
 234 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
 235 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
 236 package or packages.</li>
 237
 238 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
 239 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
 240
 241 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
 242 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
 243
 244 </ul>
 245
 246 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
 247 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
 248 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
 249 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
 250
 251 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
 252 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
 253 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
 254 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
 255 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
 256
 257 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
 258 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
 259 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
 260 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
 261 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
 262 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
 263 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
 264 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
 265
 266 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
 267 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
 268 '<tt>svn checkout
 269 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
 270 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
 271 devscripts package.</p>
 272
 273 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
 274 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
 275 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
 276 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
 277 instructions</a> for details.</p>
 278
 279       </div>
 280       <div class="tags">
 281
 282
 283         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>.
 284
 285
 286       </div>
 287     </div>
 288     <div class="padding"></div>
 289
 290     <div class="entry">
 291       <div class="title">
 292         <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>
 293       </div>
 294       <div class="date">
 295         19th January 2013
 296       </div>
 297       <div class="body">
 298         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
 299 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
 300 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
 301 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
 302 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
 303 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
 304 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
 305 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
 306 not a durable solution.
 307
 308 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
 309 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
 310
 311 <ul>
 312
 313 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
 314   than A4).</li>
 315 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
 316 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
 317 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
 318 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
 319 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
 320 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
 321 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
 322 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
 323 size).</li>
 324 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
 325   X.org packages.</li>
 326 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
 327   the time).
 328
 329 </ul>
 330
 331 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
 332 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
 333 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
 334 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
 335 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
 336 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
 337 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
 338 still be useful.</p>
 339
 340 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
 341 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
 342 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
 343 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
 344 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
 345 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
 346
 347       </div>
 348       <div class="tags">
 349
 350
 351         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>.
 352
 353
 354       </div>
 355     </div>
 356     <div class="padding"></div>
 357
 358     <div class="entry">
 359       <div class="title">
 360         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
 361       </div>
 362       <div class="date">
 363         18th January 2013
 364       </div>
 365       <div class="body">
 366         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
 367 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
 368 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
 369 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
 370 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
 371 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
 372 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
 373
 374 <pre>
 375 #!/usr/bin/python
 376 import sys
 377 import apt
 378 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
 379     cache = apt.Cache()
 380     cache.open(None)
 381     thepkgs = []
 382     for pkg in cache:
 383         version = pkg.candidate
 384         if version is None:
 385             version = pkg.installed
 386         if version is None:
 387             continue
 388         record = version.record
 389         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
 390             continue
 391         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
 392         for t in mime_types:
 393             t = t.rstrip().strip()
 394             if t == mimetype:
 395                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
 396     return thepkgs
 397 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
 398 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
 399     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
 400 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
 401 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
 402     print "  %s" %pkg
 403 </pre>
 404
 405 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
 406
 407 <pre>
 408 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
 409 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
 410   gecko-mediaplayer
 411 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
 412 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
 413   browser-plugin-gnash
 414 %
 415 </pre>
 416
 417 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
 418 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
 419 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
 420 anyone working on adding it?</p>
 421
 422 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
 423 request for icweasel support for this feature is
 424 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
 425 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
 426 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
 427 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
 428
 429       </div>
 430       <div class="tags">
 431
 432
 433         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>.
 434
 435
 436       </div>
 437     </div>
 438     <div class="padding"></div>
 439
 440     <div class="entry">
 441       <div class="title">
 442         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
 443       </div>
 444       <div class="date">
 445         16th January 2013
 446       </div>
 447       <div class="body">
 448         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
 449 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
 450 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
 451 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
 452 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
 453 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
 454 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
 455 downloaded by the browser.</p>
 456
 457 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
 458 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
 459 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
 460 can be found on the
 461 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
 462 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
 463 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
 464 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
 465 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
 466
 467 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
 468
 469 <pre>
 470   count MIME type
 471   ----- -----------------------
 472      32 text/plain
 473      30 audio/mpeg
 474      29 image/png
 475      28 image/jpeg
 476      27 application/ogg
 477      26 audio/x-mp3
 478      25 image/tiff
 479      25 image/gif
 480      22 image/bmp
 481      22 audio/x-wav
 482      20 audio/x-flac
 483      19 audio/x-mpegurl
 484      18 video/x-ms-asf
 485      18 audio/x-musepack
 486      18 audio/x-mpeg
 487      18 application/x-ogg
 488      17 video/mpeg
 489      17 audio/x-scpls
 490      17 audio/ogg
 491      16 video/x-ms-wmv
 492 </pre>
 493
 494 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
 495
 496 <pre>
 497   count MIME type
 498   ----- -----------------------
 499      33 text/plain
 500      32 image/png
 501      32 image/jpeg
 502      29 audio/mpeg
 503      27 image/gif
 504      26 image/tiff
 505      26 application/ogg
 506      25 audio/x-mp3
 507      22 image/bmp
 508      21 audio/x-wav
 509      19 audio/x-mpegurl
 510      19 audio/x-mpeg
 511      18 video/mpeg
 512      18 audio/x-scpls
 513      18 audio/x-flac
 514      18 application/x-ogg
 515      17 video/x-ms-asf
 516      17 text/html
 517      17 audio/x-musepack
 518      16 image/x-xbitmap
 519 </pre>
 520
 521 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
 522
 523 <pre>
 524   count MIME type
 525   ----- -----------------------
 526      31 text/plain
 527      31 image/png
 528      31 image/jpeg
 529      29 audio/mpeg
 530      28 application/ogg
 531      27 image/gif
 532      26 image/tiff
 533      26 audio/x-mp3
 534      23 audio/x-wav
 535      22 image/bmp
 536      21 audio/x-flac
 537      20 audio/x-mpegurl
 538      19 audio/x-mpeg
 539      18 video/x-ms-asf
 540      18 video/mpeg
 541      18 audio/x-scpls
 542      18 application/x-ogg
 543      17 audio/x-musepack
 544      16 video/x-ms-wmv
 545      16 video/x-msvideo
 546 </pre>
 547
 548 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
 549 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
 550 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
 551 issues.</p>
 552
 553 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
 554 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
 555
 556       </div>
 557       <div class="tags">
 558
 559
 560         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>.
 561
 562
 563       </div>
 564     </div>
 565     <div class="padding"></div>
 566
 567     <div class="entry">
 568       <div class="title">
 569         <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>
 570       </div>
 571       <div class="date">
 572         15th January 2013
 573       </div>
 574       <div class="body">
 575         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
 576 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
 577 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
 578 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
 579 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
 580 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
 581 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
 582 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
 583 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
 584 packages.</p>
 585
 586 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
 587 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
 588 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
 589 modalias.</p>
 590
 591 <p><blockquote>
 592 Package: package-name
 593 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
 594 </blockquote></p>
 595
 596 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
 597 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
 598
 599 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
 600 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
 601
 602 <p><blockquote>
 603 Package: cheese
 604 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
 605 </blockquote></p>
 606
 607 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
 608 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
 609
 610 <p><blockquote>
 611 Package: pcmciautils
 612 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
 613 </blockquote></p>
 614
 615 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
 616 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
 617
 618 <p><blockquote>
 619 Package: colorhug-client
 620 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
 621 </blockquote></p>
 622
 623 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
 624 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
 625 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
 626
 627 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
 628 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
 629 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
 630 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
 631 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
 632 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
 633 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
 634 Raring.</p>
 635
 636 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
 637 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
 638 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
 639 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
 640 try the
 641 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
 642 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
 643 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
 644 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
 645
 646 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
 647 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
 648
 649 <p><blockquote>
 650 % ./hw-support-lookup
 651 <br>yubikey-personalization
 652 <br>%
 653 </blockquote></p>
 654
 655 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
 656 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
 657
 658 <p><blockquote>
 659 % ./hw-support-lookup
 660 <br>pcmciautils
 661 <br>%
 662 </blockquote></p>
 663
 664 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
 665 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
 666 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
 667
 668 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
 669 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
 670 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
 671 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
 672 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
 673 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
 674 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
 675 see if it work.</p>
 676
 677 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
 678 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
 679 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
 680 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
 681
 682       </div>
 683       <div class="tags">
 684
 685
 686         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>.
 687
 688
 689       </div>
 690     </div>
 691     <div class="padding"></div>
 692
 693     <div class="entry">
 694       <div class="title">
 695         <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>
 696       </div>
 697       <div class="date">
 698         14th January 2013
 699       </div>
 700       <div class="body">
 701         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
 702 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
 703 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
 704 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
 705 in
 706 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
 707 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
 708
 709 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
 710
 711 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
 712 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
 713 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
 714 &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;,
 715 &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
 716 &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;.
 717
 718 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
 719 this shell script:</p>
 720
 721 <pre>
 722 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
 723 </pre>
 724
 725 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
 726 using modinfo:</p>
 727
 728 <pre>
 729 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
 730 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
 731 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
 732 %
 733 </pre>
 734
 735 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
 736
 737 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
 738 Bridge memory controller:</p>
 739
 740 <p><blockquote>
 741 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
 742 </blockquote></p>
 743
 744 <p>This represent these values:</p>
 745
 746 <pre>
 747  v   00008086  (vendor)
 748  d   00002770  (device)
 749  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
 750  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
 751  bc  06        (bus class)
 752  sc  00        (bus subclass)
 753  i   00        (interface)
 754 </pre>
 755
 756 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
 757 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
 758 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
 759 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
 760
 761 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
 762 means.</p>
 763
 764 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
 765
 766 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
 767 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
 768
 769 <p><blockquote>
 770 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
 771 </blockquote></p>
 772
 773 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
 774
 775 <pre>
 776  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
 777  p    0001  (device product)
 778  d    0206  (bcddevice)
 779  dc     09  (device class)
 780  dsc    00  (device subclass)
 781  dp     00  (device protocol)
 782  ic     09  (interface class)
 783  isc    00  (interface subclass)
 784  ip     00  (interface protocol)
 785 </pre>
 786
 787 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
 788 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
 789 these alias entries show up:</p>
 790
 791 <p><blockquote>
 792 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
 793 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
 794 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
 795 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
 796 </blockquote></p>
 797
 798 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
 799 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
 800 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
 801
 802 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
 803
 804 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
 805 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
 806
 807 <p><blockquote>
 808 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
 809 </blockquote></p>
 810
 811 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
 812
 813 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
 814
 815 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
 816 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
 817 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
 818
 819 <p><blockquote>
 820 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
 821 </blockquote></p>
 822
 823 <p>The values present are</p>
 824
 825 <pre>
 826  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
 827  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
 828  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
 829  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
 830  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
 831  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
 832  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
 833  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
 834  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
 835  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
 836  ct   10             (chassis type)
 837  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
 838 </pre>
 839
 840 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
 841 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
 842
 843 <pre>
 844   3 Desktop
 845   4 Low Profile Desktop
 846   5 Pizza Box
 847   6 Mini Tower
 848   7 Tower
 849   8 Portable
 850   9 Laptop
 851  10 Notebook
 852  11 Hand Held
 853  12 Docking Station
 854  13 All In One
 855  14 Sub Notebook
 856  15 Space-saving
 857  16 Lunch Box
 858  17 Main Server Chassis
 859  18 Expansion Chassis
 860  19 Sub Chassis
 861  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
 862  21 Peripheral Chassis
 863  22 RAID Chassis
 864  23 Rack Mount Chassis
 865  24 Sealed-case PC
 866  25 Multi-system
 867  26 CompactPCI
 868  27 AdvancedTCA
 869  28 Blade
 870  29 Blade Enclosing
 871 </pre>
 872
 873 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
 874 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
 875 claim it is a desktop.</p>
 876
 877 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
 878
 879 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
 880 test machine:</p>
 881
 882 <p><blockquote>
 883 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
 884 </blockquote></p>
 885
 886 <p>The values present are</p>
 887
 888 <pre>
 889   ty  01  (type)
 890   pr  00  (prototype)
 891   id  00  (id)
 892   ex  00  (extra)
 893 </pre>
 894
 895 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
 896 the valid values are.</p>
 897
 898 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
 899
 900 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
 901 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
 902 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
 903 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
 904 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
 905 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
 906 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
 907
 908 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
 909
 910 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
 911 one can use the following shell script:</p>
 912
 913 <pre>
 914   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
 915     echo "$id" ; \
 916     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
 917   done
 918 </pre>
 919
 920 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
 921 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
 922
 923 <pre>
 924   acpi:ACPI0003:
 925     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
 926   acpi:device:
 927   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
 928   acpi:IBM0068:
 929     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
 930     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
 931     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
 932     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
 933   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
 934     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
 935     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
 936     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
 937   [...]
 938 </pre>
 939
 940 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
 941 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
 942 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
 943 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
 944
 945 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
 946 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
 947 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
 948
 949       </div>
 950       <div class="tags">
 951
 952
 953         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>.
 954
 955
 956       </div>
 957     </div>
 958     <div class="padding"></div>
 959
 960     <div class="entry">
 961       <div class="title">
 962         <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>
 963       </div>
 964       <div class="date">
 965         10th January 2013
 966       </div>
 967       <div class="body">
 968         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
 969 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
 970 Launcher and updated the Debian package
 971 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
 972 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
 973 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
 974 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
 975 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
 976 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
 977 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
 978 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
 979 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
 980 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
 981 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
 982 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
 983 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
 984 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
 985 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
 986
 987       </div>
 988       <div class="tags">
 989
 990
 991         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>.
 992
 993
 994       </div>
 995     </div>
 996     <div class="padding"></div>
 997
 998     <div class="entry">
 999       <div class="title">
1000         <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>
1001       </div>
1002       <div class="date">
1003          9th January 2013
1004       </div>
1005       <div class="body">
1006         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
1007 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
1008 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
1009 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
1010 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
1011 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
1012 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
1013 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
1014 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
1015 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
1016 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
1017
1018 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
1019 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
1020 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
1021 simple:
1022
1023 <ul>
1024
1025 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
1026   starting when a user log in.</li>
1027
1028 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
1029   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
1030
1031 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
1032   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
1033   packages.</li>
1034
1035 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
1036   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
1037
1038 </ul>
1039
1040 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
1041 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
1042 discover database to find packages and
1043 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
1044 packages.</p>
1045
1046 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
1047 draft package is now checked into
1048 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
1049 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
1050 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
1051 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
1052 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
1053 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
1054 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
1055 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
1056 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
1057 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
1058 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
1059 because of the freeze).</p>
1060
1061 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
1062 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
1063 inserted):</p>
1064
1065 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
1066
1067 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
1068 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
1069 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
1070
1071 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
1072 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
1073 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
1074 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
1075 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
1076 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
1077 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
1078
1079 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
1080 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
1081 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
1082 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
1083 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
1084 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
1085 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
1086 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
1087 not be installed?</p>
1088
1089 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
1090 please send me an email. :)</p>
1091
1092       </div>
1093       <div class="tags">
1094
1095
1096         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>.
1097
1098
1099       </div>
1100     </div>
1101     <div class="padding"></div>
1102
1103     <div class="entry">
1104       <div class="title">
1105         <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>
1106       </div>
1107       <div class="date">
1108          2nd January 2013
1109       </div>
1110       <div class="body">
1111         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
1112 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
1113 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
1114 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
1115 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
1116 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
1117 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
1118 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
1119 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
1120 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
1121
1122 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
1123 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
1124 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
1125
1126       </div>
1127       <div class="tags">
1128
1129
1130         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>.
1131
1132
1133       </div>
1134     </div>
1135     <div class="padding"></div>
1136
1137     <div class="entry">
1138       <div class="title">
1139         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
1140       </div>
1141       <div class="date">
1142         28th December 2012
1143       </div>
1144       <div class="body">
1145         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
1146 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
1147 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
1148 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
1149 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
1150 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
1151 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
1152 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
1153 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
1154 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
1155 followed by many others. :)</p>
1156
1157 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
1158 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
1159 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
1160 you want to donate to the project.</p>
1161
1162       </div>
1163       <div class="tags">
1164
1165
1166         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1167
1168
1169       </div>
1170     </div>
1171     <div class="padding"></div>
1172
1173     <div class="entry">
1174       <div class="title">
1175         <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>
1176       </div>
1177       <div class="date">
1178         25th December 2012
1179       </div>
1180       <div class="body">
1181         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
1182 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
1183
1184 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
1185 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
1186 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
1187 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
1188 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
1189 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
1190 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
1191 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
1192 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
1193 name.</p>
1194
1195 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
1196 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
1197 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
1198
1199 <blockquote><pre>
1200 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
1201 cd bitcoin
1202 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
1203 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
1204 </pre></blockquote>
1205
1206 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
1207 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
1208 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
1209 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
1210 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
1211 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
1212 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
1213 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
1214 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
1215
1216 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1217 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1218 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1219
1220       </div>
1221       <div class="tags">
1222
1223
1224         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>.
1225
1226
1227       </div>
1228     </div>
1229     <div class="padding"></div>
1230
1231     <div class="entry">
1232       <div class="title">
1233         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
1234       </div>
1235       <div class="date">
1236         21st December 2012
1237       </div>
1238       <div class="body">
1239         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
1240 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
1241 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
1242 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
1243 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
1244 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
1245 is now maintained by a
1246 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
1247 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
1248 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
1249 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
1250 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
1251 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
1252 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
1253 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
1254 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
1255 Corallo in a
1256 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
1257 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
1258 Debian package.</p>
1259
1260 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
1261 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
1262 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
1263 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
1264 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
1265 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
1266 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
1267 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
1268 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
1269 new version to unstable.
1270
1271 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
1272 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
1273 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
1274 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
1275 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
1276 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
1277 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
1278 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
1279 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
1280 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
1281 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
1282 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
1283 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
1284 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
1285 have not tested them.</p>
1286
1287 <p>My
1288 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
1289 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
1290 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
1291 years ago, as can be
1292 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
1293 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
1294 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
1295 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
1296 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
1297 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
1298 the same address as last time,
1299 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1300
1301       </div>
1302       <div class="tags">
1303
1304
1305         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>.
1306
1307
1308       </div>
1309     </div>
1310     <div class="padding"></div>
1311
1312     <div class="entry">
1313       <div class="title">
1314         <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>
1315       </div>
1316       <div class="date">
1317         18th December 2012
1318       </div>
1319       <div class="body">
1320         <p>A few days ago I came across
1321 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
1322 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
1323 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
1324 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
1325 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
1326 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
1327 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
1328 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
1329 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
1330
1331 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
1332 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
1333 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
1334 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
1335
1336 <blockquote><pre>
1337 2004-05-27 Book Store
1338       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
1339       Liabilities:Visa
1340 </pre></blockquote>
1341
1342 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
1343 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
1344 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
1345 Spang</a>,
1346 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
1347 Keen</a>,
1348 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
1349 Cantino</a> and
1350 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
1351 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
1352 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
1353 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
1354 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
1355
1356 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
1357 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
1358 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
1359 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
1360 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
1361
1362 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
1363 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
1364 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
1365 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
1366 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
1367 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
1368 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
1369 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
1370 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
1371
1372       </div>
1373       <div class="tags">
1374
1375
1376         Tags: <a href="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>.
1377
1378
1379       </div>
1380     </div>
1381     <div class="padding"></div>
1382
1383     <div class="entry">
1384       <div class="title">
1385         <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>
1386       </div>
1387       <div class="date">
1388          6th December 2012
1389       </div>
1390       <div class="body">
1391         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
1392 Oslo</a>, we use the
1393 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
1394 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
1395 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
1396 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
1397 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
1398 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
1399 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
1400 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
1401 Python.</p>
1402
1403 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
1404 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
1405 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
1406 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
1407 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
1408 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
1409
1410 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
1411 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
1412 user currently logged in:</p>
1413
1414 <blockquote><pre>
1415 #!/usr/bin/env python
1416 import getpass
1417 import xmlrpclib
1418 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
1419 username = getpass.getuser()
1420 password = getpass.getpass()
1421 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
1422 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
1423 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
1424 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
1425 result = server.logout(sessionid)
1426 print result
1427 </pre></blockquote>
1428
1429 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
1430 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
1431
1432       </div>
1433       <div class="tags">
1434
1435
1436         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>.
1437
1438
1439       </div>
1440     </div>
1441     <div class="padding"></div>
1442
1443     <div class="entry">
1444       <div class="title">
1445         <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>
1446       </div>
1447       <div class="date">
1448         17th November 2012
1449       </div>
1450       <div class="body">
1451         <p>While working on a
1452 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
1453 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
1454 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
1455 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
1456 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
1457 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
1458
1459 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
1460 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
1461 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
1462 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
1463 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
1464 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
1465 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
1466 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
1467 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
1468 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
1469 arguments.</p>
1470
1471 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
1472 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
1473 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
1474 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
1475 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
1476 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
1477 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
1478 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
1479
1480 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
1481 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
1482 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
1483 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
1484 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
1485 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
1486 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
1487 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
1488 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
1489 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
1490 correct right holder.</p>
1491
1492 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
1493 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
1494 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
1495 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
1496 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
1497 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
1498 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
1499 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
1500 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
1501 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
1502 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
1503 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
1504 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
1505 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
1506
1507 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
1508 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
1509 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
1510
1511 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
1512 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
1513
1514       </div>
1515       <div class="tags">
1516
1517
1518         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>.
1519
1520
1521       </div>
1522     </div>
1523     <div class="padding"></div>
1524
1525     <div class="entry">
1526       <div class="title">
1527         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
1528       </div>
1529       <div class="date">
1530         14th November 2012
1531       </div>
1532       <div class="body">
1533         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
1534 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
1535 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
1536 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
1537 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
1538 the people behind the German
1539 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
1540 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
1541 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
1542
1543 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1544
1545 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
1546 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
1547 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
1548
1549 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
1550 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
1551 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
1552 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
1553 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
1554 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
1555
1556 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
1557 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
1558 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
1559 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
1560 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
1561 relationship management and the communication processes in the
1562 project.</p>
1563
1564 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
1565 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
1566 and a yoga teacher.</p>
1567
1568 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
1569 project?</strong></p>
1570
1571 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
1572
1573 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
1574 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
1575 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
1576 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
1577 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
1578 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
1579 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
1580 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
1581 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
1582 parents.</p>
1583
1584 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
1585 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
1586 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
1587 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
1588 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
1589 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
1590 Germany.</p>
1591
1592 <p>For information about our school project you can read
1593 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
1594 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
1595
1596 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1597 Edu?</strong></p>
1598
1599 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
1600 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
1601
1602 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
1603 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
1604 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
1605 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
1606 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
1607 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
1608 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
1609 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
1610 teachers, parents...</p>
1611
1612 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1613 Edu?</strong></p>
1614
1615 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
1616 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
1617
1618 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
1619 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
1620 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
1621 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
1622 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
1623
1624 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
1625 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
1626 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
1627 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
1628 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
1629 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
1630 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
1631
1632 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1633
1634 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
1635 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
1636 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
1637 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
1638
1639 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1640 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1641
1642 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
1643 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
1644 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
1645 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
1646 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
1647
1648 <ul>
1649
1650 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
1651 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
1652 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
1653
1654 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
1655 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
1656 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
1657 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
1658 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
1659 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
1660 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
1661
1662 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
1663 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
1664 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
1665 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
1666
1667 </ul>
1668
1669       </div>
1670       <div class="tags">
1671
1672
1673         Tags: <a href="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>.
1674
1675
1676       </div>
1677     </div>
1678     <div class="padding"></div>
1679
1680     <div class="entry">
1681       <div class="title">
1682         <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>
1683       </div>
1684       <div class="date">
1685          4th November 2012
1686       </div>
1687       <div class="body">
1688         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
1689 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
1690 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
1691 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
1692 see how a member of the bitcoin community
1693 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
1694 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
1695 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
1696 competition.  My thoughts go to the
1697 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
1698 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
1699 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
1700 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
1701 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
1702
1703 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
1704 that the community already seem to have
1705 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
1706 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
1707 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
1708 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
1709 wealth is available.</p>
1710
1711       </div>
1712       <div class="tags">
1713
1714
1715         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>.
1716
1717
1718       </div>
1719     </div>
1720     <div class="padding"></div>
1721
1722     <div class="entry">
1723       <div class="title">
1724         <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>
1725       </div>
1726       <div class="date">
1727         26th October 2012
1728       </div>
1729       <div class="body">
1730         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
1731 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
1732 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
1733 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
1734 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
1735 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
1736 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
1737 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
1738 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
1739 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
1740 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
1741 it every time.</p>
1742
1743 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
1744 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
1745 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
1746 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
1747 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
1748 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
1749 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
1750 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
1751 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
1752 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
1753 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
1754 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
1755
1756 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
1757 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
1758 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
1759 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
1760 article: First the unplanned outage:
1761
1762 <blockquote><pre>
1763 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
1764 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
1765 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
1766 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
1767 Duration:    40 minutes
1768 Scope:       Exchange 2003
1769 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
1770              a cluster failover.
1771
1772 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
1773              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
1774 Technician:  [xxx]
1775 </pre></blockquote>
1776
1777 Next the planned outage:
1778
1779 <blockquote><pre>
1780 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
1781 Severity:    Major (Planned)
1782 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
1783 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
1784 Duration:    10 hours
1785 Scope:       H2 Transport
1786 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
1787              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
1788              4510s.
1789 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
1790              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
1791              connectivity.
1792 Technician:  [xxx]
1793 </pre></blockquote>
1794
1795 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
1796 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
1797 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
1798 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
1799 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
1800 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
1801 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
1802
1803 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
1804 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
1805 university too.  We do register
1806 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
1807 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
1808 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
1809 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
1810 for other sites to consider too?</p>
1811
1812       </div>
1813       <div class="tags">
1814
1815
1816         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>.
1817
1818
1819       </div>
1820     </div>
1821     <div class="padding"></div>
1822
1823     <div class="entry">
1824       <div class="title">
1825         <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>
1826       </div>
1827       <div class="date">
1828         22nd October 2012
1829       </div>
1830       <div class="body">
1831         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
1832 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
1833 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
1834 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
1835 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
1836 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
1837 background information is available in Norwegian from
1838 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
1839 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
1840 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
1841 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
1842 willing to
1843 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
1844 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
1845 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
1846 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
1847 sounded like
1848 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
1849 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
1850 later.</p>
1851
1852 <p>And thought this action is
1853 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
1854 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
1855 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
1856 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
1857 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
1858 rights.</p>
1859
1860 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
1861 unacceptable terms.  For example
1862 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
1863 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
1864 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
1865 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
1866 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
1867
1868 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
1869 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
1870 restored the account of the user, as reported by
1871 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
1872 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
1873 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
1874 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
1875 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
1876 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
1877 reading two opinions from
1878 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
1879 Phipps</a> and
1880 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
1881 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
1882 details about the original story.</p>
1883
1884       </div>
1885       <div class="tags">
1886
1887
1888         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>.
1889
1890
1891       </div>
1892     </div>
1893     <div class="padding"></div>
1894
1895     <div class="entry">
1896       <div class="title">
1897         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
1898       </div>
1899       <div class="date">
1900         18th October 2012
1901       </div>
1902       <div class="body">
1903         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
1904 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
1905 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
1906 across a marvellous drawing by
1907 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
1908 visualising some of what is going on.
1909
1910 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
1911 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
1912
1913 <blockquote>
1914 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
1915 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
1916 </blockquote>
1917
1918 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
1919 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
1920 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
1921 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
1922 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
1923 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
1924
1925       </div>
1926       <div class="tags">
1927
1928
1929         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>.
1930
1931
1932       </div>
1933     </div>
1934     <div class="padding"></div>
1935
1936     <div class="entry">
1937       <div class="title">
1938         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
1939       </div>
1940       <div class="date">
1941         12th October 2012
1942       </div>
1943       <div class="body">
1944         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
1945 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
1946 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
1947 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
1948 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
1949 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
1950 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
1951 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
1952 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
1953 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
1954 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
1955 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
1956 matter".</p>
1957
1958 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
1959 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
1960 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
1961 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
1962 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
1963 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
1964 to argue its side.</p>
1965
1966 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
1967 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
1968 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
1969 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
1970
1971 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
1972 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
1973 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
1974
1975       </div>
1976       <div class="tags">
1977
1978
1979         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>.
1980
1981
1982       </div>
1983     </div>
1984     <div class="padding"></div>
1985
1986     <div class="entry">
1987       <div class="title">
1988         <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>
1989       </div>
1990       <div class="date">
1991          3rd October 2012
1992       </div>
1993       <div class="body">
1994         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
1995 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
1996 the computer science book collection available in his local
1997 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
1998 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
1999 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
2000 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
2001 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
2002 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
2003 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
2004 recently published books.</p>
2005
2006 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
2007 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
2008 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
2009 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
2010 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
2011 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
2012 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
2013 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
2014 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
2015 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
2016 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
2017 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
2018 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
2019 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
2020 for the library that evening.</p>
2021
2022 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
2023 going to know that for example
2024 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
2025 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
2026 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
2027 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
2028 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
2029 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
2030 book right away.</p>
2031
2032       </div>
2033       <div class="tags">
2034
2035
2036         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2037
2038
2039       </div>
2040     </div>
2041     <div class="padding"></div>
2042
2043     <div class="entry">
2044       <div class="title">
2045         <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>
2046       </div>
2047       <div class="date">
2048         23rd September 2012
2049       </div>
2050       <div class="body">
2051         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
2052 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
2053 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
2054 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
2055 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
2056 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
2057
2058 When I started, I
2059 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
2060 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
2061 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
2062 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
2063 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
2064 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
2065 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
2066
2067 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
2068
2069 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
2070 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
2071 the project files currently available from
2072 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
2073
2074 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
2075 the updated
2076 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
2077 and
2078 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
2079 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
2080 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
2081 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
2082
2083       </div>
2084       <div class="tags">
2085
2086
2087         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>.
2088
2089
2090       </div>
2091     </div>
2092     <div class="padding"></div>
2093
2094     <div class="entry">
2095       <div class="title">
2096         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
2097       </div>
2098       <div class="date">
2099         17th September 2012
2100       </div>
2101       <div class="body">
2102         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
2103 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
2104 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
2105 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
2106 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
2107 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
2108 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
2109
2110 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2111
2112 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
2113 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
2114 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
2115 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
2116 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
2117 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
2118 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
2119 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
2120 training is anyway very important</p>
2121
2122 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
2123 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
2124 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
2125 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
2126 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
2127
2128 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2129 project?</strong></p>
2130
2131 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
2132 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
2133 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
2134 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
2135 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
2136 hole.</p>
2137
2138 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2139 Edu?</strong></p>
2140
2141 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
2142 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
2143 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
2144 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
2145 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
2146 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
2147 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
2148 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
2149 hassle.</p>
2150
2151 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2152 Edu?</strong></p>
2153
2154 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
2155 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
2156 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
2157 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
2158 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
2159 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
2160 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
2161 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
2162
2163 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2164
2165 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
2166 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
2167 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
2168 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
2169 has the same...</p>
2170
2171 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
2172 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
2173 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
2174 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
2175
2176 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2177 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2178
2179 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
2180 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
2181 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
2182
2183 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
2184 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
2185 don't.</p>
2186
2187 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
2188 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
2189 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
2190 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
2191 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
2192 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
2193 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
2194
2195       </div>
2196       <div class="tags">
2197
2198
2199         Tags: <a href="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>.
2200
2201
2202       </div>
2203     </div>
2204     <div class="padding"></div>
2205
2206     <div class="entry">
2207       <div class="title">
2208         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
2209       </div>
2210       <div class="date">
2211         15th September 2012
2212       </div>
2213       <div class="body">
2214         <p>After the
2215 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
2216 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
2217 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
2218 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
2219 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
2220 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
2221 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
2222 was
2223 <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
2224 formal working group should be formed.</p>
2225
2226 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
2227 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
2228 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
2229 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
2230 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
2231 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
2232 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
2233 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
2234
2235 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
2236 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
2237 IETF.</p>
2238
2239       </div>
2240       <div class="tags">
2241
2242
2243         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>.
2244
2245
2246       </div>
2247     </div>
2248     <div class="padding"></div>
2249
2250     <div class="entry">
2251       <div class="title">
2252         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
2253       </div>
2254       <div class="date">
2255         12th September 2012
2256       </div>
2257       <div class="body">
2258         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
2259 publication of of
2260 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
2261 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
2262 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
2263 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
2264 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
2265 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
2266 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
2267 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
2268 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
2269 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
2270
2271 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
2272 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
2273 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
2274 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
2275
2276 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
2277 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
2278
2279       </div>
2280       <div class="tags">
2281
2282
2283         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>.
2284
2285
2286       </div>
2287     </div>
2288     <div class="padding"></div>
2289
2290     <div class="entry">
2291       <div class="title">
2292         <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>
2293       </div>
2294       <div class="date">
2295          7th September 2012
2296       </div>
2297       <div class="body">
2298         <p>As I
2299 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
2300 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
2301 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
2302 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
2303 repository for the project</a>.</p>
2304
2305 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
2306 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
2307 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
2308 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
2309
2310 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
2311 PostScript formats at
2312 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
2313 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
2314
2315       </div>
2316       <div class="tags">
2317
2318
2319         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>.
2320
2321
2322       </div>
2323     </div>
2324     <div class="padding"></div>
2325
2326     <div class="entry">
2327       <div class="title">
2328         <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>
2329       </div>
2330       <div class="date">
2331         23rd August 2012
2332       </div>
2333       <div class="body">
2334         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
2335 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
2336 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
2337 revisit the great site
2338 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
2339 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
2340 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
2341
2342       </div>
2343       <div class="tags">
2344
2345
2346         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>.
2347
2348
2349       </div>
2350     </div>
2351     <div class="padding"></div>
2352
2353     <div class="entry">
2354       <div class="title">
2355         <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>
2356       </div>
2357       <div class="date">
2358         17th August 2012
2359       </div>
2360       <div class="body">
2361         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
2362 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
2363 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
2364 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
2365 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
2366 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
2367 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
2368 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
2369 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
2370 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
2371 summer I
2372 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
2373 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
2374 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
2375
2376 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
2377 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
2378 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
2379 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
2380 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
2381 progress:</p>
2382
2383 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
2384
2385 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
2386 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
2387 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
2388 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
2389 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
2390 english version of the docbook source.</p>
2391
2392 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
2393 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
2394 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
2395 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
2396 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
2397 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
2398 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
2399 project files currently available from <a
2400 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
2401
2402 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
2403 the updated
2404 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
2405 and
2406 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
2407 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
2408 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
2409 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
2410
2411       </div>
2412       <div class="tags">
2413
2414
2415         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>.
2416
2417
2418       </div>
2419     </div>
2420     <div class="padding"></div>
2421
2422     <div class="entry">
2423       <div class="title">
2424         <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>
2425       </div>
2426       <div class="date">
2427         10th August 2012
2428       </div>
2429       <div class="body">
2430         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
2431 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
2432 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
2433 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
2434 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
2435 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
2436 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
2437 case for the language
2438 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
2439 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
2440
2441 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
2442 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
2443 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
2444 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
2445 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
2446
2447 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
2448 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
2449 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
2450 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
2451 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
2452 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
2453 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
2454 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
2455 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
2456 alias for 'nb'.</p>
2457
2458 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
2459 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
2460 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
2461 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
2462 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
2463 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
2464 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
2465 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
2466 at the same time. :(</p>
2467
2468 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
2469 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
2470 processors. :(</p>
2471
2472 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
2473
2474       </div>
2475       <div class="tags">
2476
2477
2478         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>.
2479
2480
2481       </div>
2482     </div>
2483     <div class="padding"></div>
2484
2485     <div class="entry">
2486       <div class="title">
2487         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
2488       </div>
2489       <div class="date">
2490         31st July 2012
2491       </div>
2492       <div class="body">
2493         <p>I tried to send this text to the
2494 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
2495 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
2496 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
2497 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
2498 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
2499 out.</p>
2500
2501 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
2502 learning curve at the moment.</p>
2503
2504 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
2505 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
2506 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
2507 available from
2508 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
2509 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
2510 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
2511 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
2512 Squeeze.</p>
2513
2514 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
2515 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
2516 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
2517 problems.</p>
2518
2519 <ul>
2520
2521 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
2522    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
2523    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
2524    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
2525    index references spanning several pages (See
2526    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
2527    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
2528    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
2529
2530 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
2531    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
2532    #683163</a>).</li>
2533
2534 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
2535    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
2536    footnote and text body, see
2537    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
2538    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
2539    refs listed are not right).</li>
2540
2541 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
2542
2543 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
2544    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
2545
2546 </ul>
2547
2548 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
2549 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
2550 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
2551
2552 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
2553
2554       </div>
2555       <div class="tags">
2556
2557
2558         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>.
2559
2560
2561       </div>
2562     </div>
2563     <div class="padding"></div>
2564
2565     <div class="entry">
2566       <div class="title">
2567         <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>
2568       </div>
2569       <div class="date">
2570         21st July 2012
2571       </div>
2572       <div class="body">
2573         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
2574 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
2575 norwegian version</a> of the book
2576 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
2577 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
2578 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
2579 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
2580 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
2581
2582 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
2583 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
2584 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
2585 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
2586 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
2587 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
2588 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
2589 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
2590 print. :)</p>
2591
2592 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
2593 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
2594 language.</p>
2595
2596       </div>
2597       <div class="tags">
2598
2599
2600         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>.
2601
2602
2603       </div>
2604     </div>
2605     <div class="padding"></div>
2606
2607     <div class="entry">
2608       <div class="title">
2609         <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>
2610       </div>
2611       <div class="date">
2612         16th July 2012
2613       </div>
2614       <div class="body">
2615         <p>I am currently working on a
2616 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
2617 to translate</a> the book
2618 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
2619 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
2620 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
2621 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
2622 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
2623 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
2624 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
2625
2626 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
2627 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
2628 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
2629 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
2630 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
2631 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
2632 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
2633 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
2634 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
2635
2636       </div>
2637       <div class="tags">
2638
2639
2640         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>.
2641
2642
2643       </div>
2644     </div>
2645     <div class="padding"></div>
2646
2647     <div class="entry">
2648       <div class="title">
2649         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
2650       </div>
2651       <div class="date">
2652          9th July 2012
2653       </div>
2654       <div class="body">
2655         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2656 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
2657 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
2658 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
2659 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
2660 to adjust and scale the just released
2661 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
2662 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
2663 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
2664
2665 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2666
2667 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
2668 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
2669 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
2670 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
2671 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
2672 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
2673 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
2674 perspective when working with IT.</p>
2675
2676 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2677 project?</strong></p>
2678
2679 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
2680 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
2681 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
2682 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
2683 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
2684 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
2685
2686 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2687 Edu?</strong></p>
2688
2689 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
2690 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
2691 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
2692 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
2693 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
2694 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
2695 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
2696 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
2697 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
2698 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
2699 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
2700 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
2701 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
2702 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
2703 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
2704 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
2705 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
2706 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
2707 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
2708 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
2709 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
2710 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
2711 quicker to update.
2712
2713 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2714 Edu?</strong></p>
2715
2716 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
2717 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
2718 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
2719 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
2720 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
2721 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
2722
2723 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
2724 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
2725 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
2726 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
2727 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
2728 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
2729 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
2730 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
2731 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
2732 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
2733 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
2734 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
2735 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
2736 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
2737 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
2738
2739 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
2740 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
2741 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
2742 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
2743 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
2744 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
2745 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
2746 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
2747
2748 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
2749 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
2750 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
2751 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
2752 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
2753 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
2754 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
2755 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
2756 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
2757 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
2758 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
2759 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
2760 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
2761 sound file.</p>
2762
2763 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
2764 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
2765 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
2766 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
2767 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
2768 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
2769 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
2770 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
2771 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
2772
2773 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2774
2775 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
2776 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
2777 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
2778 )</p>
2779
2780 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2781 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2782
2783 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
2784 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
2785 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
2786 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
2787 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
2788 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
2789 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
2790 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
2791 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
2792 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
2793 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
2794 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
2795 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
2796 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
2797 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
2798
2799 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
2800 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
2801 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
2802 management with Airtime</a>,
2803 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
2804 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
2805 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
2806 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
2807 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
2808
2809       </div>
2810       <div class="tags">
2811
2812
2813         Tags: <a href="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>.
2814
2815
2816       </div>
2817     </div>
2818     <div class="padding"></div>
2819
2820     <div class="entry">
2821       <div class="title">
2822         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
2823       </div>
2824       <div class="date">
2825          8th July 2012
2826       </div>
2827       <div class="body">
2828         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
2829 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
2830 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
2831 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
2832 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
2833 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
2834 Steinberg in his blog post
2835 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
2836 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
2837 spending of your tax money.</p>
2838
2839 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
2840 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
2841 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
2842 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
2843 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
2844 purchases.</p>
2845
2846       </div>
2847       <div class="tags">
2848
2849
2850         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2851
2852
2853       </div>
2854     </div>
2855     <div class="padding"></div>
2856
2857     <div class="entry">
2858       <div class="title">
2859         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
2860       </div>
2861       <div class="date">
2862          7th July 2012
2863       </div>
2864       <div class="body">
2865         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2866 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
2867 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
2868 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
2869 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
2870 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
2871 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
2872 receive.  The software is
2873
2874 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
2875 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
2876 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
2877 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
2878 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
2879 Windows</a>.</p>
2880
2881 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
2882 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
2883
2884 <p><ul>
2885
2886   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
2887     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
2888
2889   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
2890     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
2891     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
2892     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
2893     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
2894     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
2895     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
2896     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
2897     </li>
2898
2899   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
2900     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
2901
2902   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
2903     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
2904
2905   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
2906     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
2907
2908   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
2909
2910   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
2911     formats </li>
2912
2913   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
2914     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
2915     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
2916     (as separate sets)</li>
2917
2918   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
2919     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
2920     percentage)</li>
2921
2922   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
2923     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
2924     memory):
2925     <ul>
2926       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
2927       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
2928       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
2929       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
2930       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
2931       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
2932       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
2933       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
2934       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
2935       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
2936           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
2937           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
2938           activity)</li>
2939       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
2940       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
2941     </ul></li>
2942
2943   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
2944     <ul>
2945       <li>Break periods</li>
2946       <li>For teacher(s):
2947         <ul>
2948           <li>Not available periods</li>
2949           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
2950           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
2951           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
2952           <li>Min hours daily</li>
2953           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
2954
2955           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
2956             days per week</li>
2957         </ul></li>
2958       <li>For students (sets):
2959         <ul>
2960           <li>Not available periods</li>
2961           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
2962           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
2963           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
2964           <li>Min hours daily</li>
2965           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
2966
2967           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
2968             days per week</li>
2969         </ul></li>
2970       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
2971         <ul>
2972           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
2973           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
2974           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
2975           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
2976           <li>End(s) students day</li>
2977           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
2978           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
2979             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
2980           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
2981           <li>Not overlapping</li>
2982           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
2983           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
2984         </ul></li>
2985     </ul></li>
2986
2987   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
2988     <ul>
2989       <li>Room not available periods</li>
2990       <li>For teacher(s):
2991         <ul>
2992           <li>Home room(s)</li>
2993           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
2994           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
2995         </ul>
2996       </li>
2997
2998       <li>For students (sets):
2999         <ul>
3000           <li>Home room(s)</li>
3001           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
3002           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
3003         </ul>
3004       </li>
3005       <li>Preferred room(s):
3006         <ul>
3007           <li>For a subject</li>
3008           <li>For an activity tag</li>
3009           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
3010           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
3011         </ul>
3012       </li>
3013
3014       <li>For a set of activities:
3015         <ul>
3016           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
3017         </ul>
3018       </li>
3019     </ul>
3020   </li>
3021 </ul></p>
3022
3023 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
3024 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
3025 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
3026 manually, check it out.
3027
3028 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
3029 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
3030 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
3031 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
3032 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
3033 section</a>.</p>
3034
3035       </div>
3036       <div class="tags">
3037
3038
3039         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</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/Can_Zimbra_be_told_to_send_autoreplies_to_the_From__address_.html">Can Zimbra be told to send autoreplies to the From: address?</a>
3049       </div>
3050       <div class="date">
3051          3rd July 2012
3052       </div>
3053       <div class="body">
3054         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
3055 project (Norwegian version of
3056 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
3057 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
3058 a problem with the municipalities using
3059 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
3060 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
3061 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
3062 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
3063 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
3064 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
3065 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
3066 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
3067 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
3068 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
3069 the From: header.</p>
3070
3071 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
3072 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
3073 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
3074 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
3075 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
3076 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
3077 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
3078 behaviour.</p>
3079
3080 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
3081 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
3082 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
3083 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
3084 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
3085 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
3086 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
3087
3088       </div>
3089       <div class="tags">
3090
3091
3092         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>.
3093
3094
3095       </div>
3096     </div>
3097     <div class="padding"></div>
3098
3099     <div class="entry">
3100       <div class="title">
3101         <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>
3102       </div>
3103       <div class="date">
3104         26th June 2012
3105       </div>
3106       <div class="body">
3107         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
3108 another interview with the people behind
3109 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
3110 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
3111 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
3112 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
3113 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
3114 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
3115 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
3116
3117 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3118
3119 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
3120 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
3121 ICT in schools</p>
3122
3123 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3124 project?</strong></p>
3125
3126 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
3127 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
3128 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
3129 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
3130
3131 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3132 Edu?</strong></p>
3133
3134 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
3135 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
3136 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
3137 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
3138
3139 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3140 Edu?</strong></p>
3141
3142 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
3143 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
3144 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
3145 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
3146 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
3147 technologies in school.</p>
3148
3149 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3150
3151 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
3152 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
3153 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
3154
3155 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3156 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3157
3158 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
3159 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
3160 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
3161 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
3162
3163 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
3164 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
3165 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
3166
3167 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
3168 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
3169 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
3170 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
3171 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
3172 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
3173 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
3174 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
3175 working there.</p>
3176
3177       </div>
3178       <div class="tags">
3179
3180
3181         Tags: <a href="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>.
3182
3183
3184       </div>
3185     </div>
3186     <div class="padding"></div>
3187
3188     <div class="entry">
3189       <div class="title">
3190         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
3191       </div>
3192       <div class="date">
3193         24th June 2012
3194       </div>
3195       <div class="body">
3196         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
3197 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
3198 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
3199 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
3200 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
3201 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
3202 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
3203 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
3204 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
3205 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
3206 missing in my book.</p>
3207
3208 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
3209 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
3210 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
3211 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
3212 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
3213 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
3214 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
3215
3216       </div>
3217       <div class="tags">
3218
3219
3220         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>.
3221
3222
3223       </div>
3224     </div>
3225     <div class="padding"></div>
3226
3227     <div class="entry">
3228       <div class="title">
3229         <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>
3230       </div>
3231       <div class="date">
3232         11th June 2012
3233       </div>
3234       <div class="body">
3235         <p>During my work on
3236 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
3237 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
3238 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
3239 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
3240 explanation.</p>
3241
3242 <p><ul>
3243
3244 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
3245 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
3246 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
3247 system depend on tasksel tasks in
3248 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
3249 installation.</li>
3250
3251 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
3252 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
3253 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
3254 at least try to enable it for these services:
3255 <ul>
3256
3257   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
3258     quotas.</li>
3259   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
3260   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
3261   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
3262   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
3263   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
3264
3265 </ul></li>
3266
3267 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
3268 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
3269 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
3270 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
3271
3272 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
3273 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
3274 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
3275
3276 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
3277 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
3278 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
3279 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
3280 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
3281 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
3282
3283 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
3284 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
3285 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
3286 in Wheezy.
3287
3288 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
3289 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
3290 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
3291
3292 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
3293 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
3294 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
3295 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
3296
3297 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
3298 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
3299 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
3300 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
3301
3302 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
3303 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
3304 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
3305
3306 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
3307 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
3308 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
3309
3310 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
3311 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
3312 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
3313 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
3314 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
3315
3316 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
3317 <ul>
3318
3319 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
3320 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
3321 <li>and probably more?</li>
3322 </ul></li>
3323
3324 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
3325 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
3326 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
3327 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
3328 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
3329 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
3330 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
3331 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
3332
3333
3334 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
3335 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
3336 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
3337 use.</li>
3338
3339 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
3340 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
3341 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
3342 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
3343 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
3344
3345 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
3346 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
3347 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
3348 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
3349 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
3350 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
3351
3352 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
3353 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
3354 There are at least three implementations,
3355 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
3356 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
3357 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
3358 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
3359 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
3360 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
3361 given room.</li>
3362
3363 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
3364 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
3365 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
3366 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
3367 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
3368 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
3369 investigated.</li>
3370
3371 </ul></p>
3372
3373 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
3374 version.</p>
3375
3376       </div>
3377       <div class="tags">
3378
3379
3380         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3381
3382
3383       </div>
3384     </div>
3385     <div class="padding"></div>
3386
3387     <div class="entry">
3388       <div class="title">
3389         <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>
3390       </div>
3391       <div class="date">
3392          9th June 2012
3393       </div>
3394       <div class="body">
3395         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
3396 <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
3397 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
3398 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
3399 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
3400 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
3401 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
3402 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
3403 be willing to pay for.</p>
3404
3405 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
3406 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
3407 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
3408 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
3409 Orwell</a>.</p>
3410
3411       </div>
3412       <div class="tags">
3413
3414
3415         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>.
3416
3417
3418       </div>
3419     </div>
3420     <div class="padding"></div>
3421
3422     <div class="entry">
3423       <div class="title">
3424         <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>
3425       </div>
3426       <div class="date">
3427          6th June 2012
3428       </div>
3429       <div class="body">
3430         <p>A few days ago
3431 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
3432 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
3433 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
3434 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
3435 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
3436 code for HP, Dell and IBM
3437 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
3438 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
3439 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
3440 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
3441 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
3442
3443 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
3444 output:
3445
3446 <blockquote><pre>
3447 % 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>
3448 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": ""})
3449 %
3450 </pre></blockquote>
3451
3452 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
3453 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
3454 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
3455
3456       </div>
3457       <div class="tags">
3458
3459
3460         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>.
3461
3462
3463       </div>
3464     </div>
3465     <div class="padding"></div>
3466
3467     <div class="entry">
3468       <div class="title">
3469         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
3470       </div>
3471       <div class="date">
3472          2nd June 2012
3473       </div>
3474       <div class="body">
3475         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
3476 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
3477 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
3478 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
3479 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
3480 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
3481
3482 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3483
3484 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
3485 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
3486 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
3487 by Angela).</p>
3488
3489 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
3490 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
3491 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
3492 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
3493 becoming an osteopath.</p>
3494
3495 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
3496 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
3497 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
3498 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
3499 skills with communication skills.</p>
3500
3501 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3502 project?</strong></p>
3503
3504 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
3505 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
3506 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
3507 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
3508 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
3509
3510 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
3511 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
3512 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
3513 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
3514 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
3515 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
3516 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
3517 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
3518 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
3519
3520 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
3521 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
3522 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
3523
3524 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
3525
3526 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
3527 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
3528 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
3529 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
3530 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
3531 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
3532 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
3533 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
3534 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
3535 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
3536 point.</p>
3537
3538 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
3539 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
3540 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
3541 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
3542 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
3543 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
3544
3545 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
3546 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
3547 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
3548 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
3549 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
3550 spare time.</p>
3551
3552 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
3553 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
3554 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
3555 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
3556 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
3557
3558 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
3559 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
3560 avoidance do exist.</p>
3561
3562 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
3563 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
3564 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
3565 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
3566 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
3567 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
3568 and probably a gain for all.</p>
3569
3570 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3571 Edu?</strong></p>
3572
3573 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
3574 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
3575 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
3576 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
3577 project communication, honest communication within the group of
3578 developers, etc.</p>
3579
3580 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3581 Edu?</strong></p>
3582
3583 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
3584
3585 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
3586 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
3587 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
3588 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
3589 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
3590 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
3591 contribute).</p>
3592
3593 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
3594 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
3595 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
3596 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
3597 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
3598 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
3599 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
3600 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
3601 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
3602 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
3603
3604 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3605
3606 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
3607
3608 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
3609 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
3610 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
3611
3612 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
3613 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
3614 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
3615 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
3616
3617 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
3618 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
3619 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
3620 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
3621 whiteboard.</p>
3622
3623 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
3624
3625 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3626 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3627
3628 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
3629 enrol people.</p>
3630
3631       </div>
3632       <div class="tags">
3633
3634
3635         Tags: <a href="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>.
3636
3637
3638       </div>
3639     </div>
3640     <div class="padding"></div>
3641
3642     <div class="entry">
3643       <div class="title">
3644         <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>
3645       </div>
3646       <div class="date">
3647          1st June 2012
3648       </div>
3649       <div class="body">
3650         <p>A few years ago I wrote
3651 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
3652 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
3653 I have learned from colleges here at the
3654 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
3655 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
3656 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
3657 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
3658 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
3659
3660 <p><pre>
3661 use strict;
3662 use warnings;
3663 use SOAP::Lite;
3664 use Data::Dumper;
3665 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
3666 my $App = 'test';
3667 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
3668 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
3669 my $s = SOAP::Lite
3670     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
3671     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
3672     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
3673     ;
3674 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
3675     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
3676     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
3677     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
3678 );
3679 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
3680 </pre></p>
3681
3682 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
3683
3684 <p><pre>
3685 $VAR1 = {
3686           'Asset' => {
3687                      'Entitlements' => {
3688                                        'EntitlementData' => [
3689                                                             {
3690                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
3691                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
3692                                                               'Provider' => '',
3693                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
3694                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
3695                                                             },
3696                                                             {
3697                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
3698                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
3699                                                               'Provider' => '',
3700                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
3701                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
3702                                                             },
3703                                                             {
3704                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
3705                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
3706                                                               'Provider' => '',
3707                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
3708                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
3709                                                             }
3710                                                           ]
3711                                      },
3712                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
3713                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
3714                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
3715                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
3716                                           'Buid' => '2323',
3717                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
3718                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
3719                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
3720                                         }
3721                    }
3722         };
3723 </pre></p>
3724
3725 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
3726 service outside the
3727 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
3728 documentation</a>, and according to
3729 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
3730 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
3731 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
3732
3733 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
3734 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
3735
3736       </div>
3737       <div class="tags">
3738
3739
3740         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>.
3741
3742
3743       </div>
3744     </div>
3745     <div class="padding"></div>
3746
3747     <div class="entry">
3748       <div class="title">
3749         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
3750       </div>
3751       <div class="date">
3752         31st May 2012
3753       </div>
3754       <div class="body">
3755         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
3756 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
3757 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
3758 running Debian Squeeze, where
3759 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
3760 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
3761 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
3762 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
3763 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
3764 another day.</p>
3765
3766 <p>After calibration, I get a
3767 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
3768 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
3769 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
3770 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
3771 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
3772 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
3773 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
3774 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
3775 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
3776 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
3777 and a simple</p>
3778
3779 <p><pre>
3780 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
3781 </pre></p>
3782
3783 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
3784 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
3785 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
3786 enough for now.</p>
3787
3788       </div>
3789       <div class="tags">
3790
3791
3792         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3793
3794
3795       </div>
3796     </div>
3797     <div class="padding"></div>
3798
3799     <div class="entry">
3800       <div class="title">
3801         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
3802       </div>
3803       <div class="date">
3804         27th May 2012
3805       </div>
3806       <div class="body">
3807         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
3808 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
3809 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
3810 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
3811 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
3812 since then, helping to make sure the
3813 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
3814 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
3815
3816 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3817
3818 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
3819 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
3820 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
3821 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
3822 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
3823 our computer network.</p>
3824
3825 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
3826 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
3827 (4 months).</p>
3828
3829 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3830 project?</strong></p>
3831
3832 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
3833 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
3834 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
3835 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
3836 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
3837 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
3838 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
3839 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
3840 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
3841 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
3842 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
3843 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
3844 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
3845 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
3846
3847 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3848 Edu?</strong></p>
3849
3850 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
3851 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
3852 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
3853 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
3854 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
3855 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
3856 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
3857 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
3858
3859 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3860 Edu?</strong></p>
3861
3862 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
3863 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
3864 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
3865 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
3866 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
3867 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
3868 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
3869 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
3870 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
3871 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
3872 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
3873 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
3874
3875 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3876
3877 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
3878 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
3879 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
3880
3881 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3882 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3883
3884 <p><ol>
3885
3886 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
3887 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
3888 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
3889 developing.</li>
3890
3891 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
3892 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
3893 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
3894 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
3895 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
3896
3897 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
3898 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
3899 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
3900
3901 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
3902 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
3903 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
3904 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
3905
3906 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
3907 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
3908 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
3909
3910 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
3911
3912 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
3913 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
3914 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
3915 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
3916
3917 </ol></p>
3918
3919       </div>
3920       <div class="tags">
3921
3922
3923         Tags: <a href="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>.
3924
3925
3926       </div>
3927     </div>
3928     <div class="padding"></div>
3929
3930     <div class="entry">
3931       <div class="title">
3932         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
3933       </div>
3934       <div class="date">
3935         26th May 2012
3936       </div>
3937       <div class="body">
3938         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
3939 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
3940 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
3941 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
3942 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
3943
3944 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
3945 <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>
3946 comment:</p>
3947
3948 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
3949 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
3950 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
3951 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
3952 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
3953 </blockquote></p>
3954
3955 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
3956 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
3957 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
3958 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
3959 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
3960 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
3961 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
3962 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
3963 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
3964 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
3965 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
3966 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
3967 of wasted effort.</p>
3968
3969 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
3970 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
3971 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
3972
3973 <p>See
3974 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
3975 and
3976 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
3977 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
3978 </blockquote></p>
3979
3980       </div>
3981       <div class="tags">
3982
3983
3984         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>.
3985
3986
3987       </div>
3988     </div>
3989     <div class="padding"></div>
3990
3991     <div class="entry">
3992       <div class="title">
3993         <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>
3994       </div>
3995       <div class="date">
3996         18th May 2012
3997       </div>
3998       <div class="body">
3999         <p>In january, I
4000 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
4001 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
4002 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
4003 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
4004 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
4005 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
4006 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
4007 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
4008 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
4009 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
4010
4011 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
4012 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
4013 drivers. :)</p>
4014
4015       </div>
4016       <div class="tags">
4017
4018
4019         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4020
4021
4022       </div>
4023     </div>
4024     <div class="padding"></div>
4025
4026     <div class="entry">
4027       <div class="title">
4028         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
4029       </div>
4030       <div class="date">
4031         13th May 2012
4032       </div>
4033       <div class="body">
4034         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
4035 publish another interview with the people behind
4036 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
4037 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
4038 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
4039 details get right before release.
4040
4041 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4042
4043 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
4044 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
4045 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
4046 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
4047 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
4048 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
4049 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
4050 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
4051
4052 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
4053 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
4054 home since 2006.</p>
4055
4056 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4057 project?</strong></p>
4058
4059 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
4060 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
4061 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
4062 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
4063 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
4064 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
4065
4066 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
4067 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
4068 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
4069 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
4070 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
4071 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
4072 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
4073 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
4074 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
4075 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
4076 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
4077 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
4078 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
4079 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
4080 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
4081 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
4082
4083 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4084 Edu?</strong></p>
4085
4086 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
4087 for me as today.</p>
4088
4089 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
4090
4091 <p><ul>
4092
4093 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
4094 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
4095
4096 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
4097 cost.</li>
4098
4099 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
4100 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
4101 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
4102 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
4103 server</li>
4104
4105 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
4106 school.</li>
4107
4108 </ul></p>
4109
4110 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
4111 came up in this way:</p>
4112
4113 <p><ul>
4114
4115 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
4116 now.</li>
4117
4118 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
4119 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
4120 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
4121
4122 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
4123 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
4124 interfaces used in the past.</li>
4125
4126 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
4127 different needs.</li>
4128
4129 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
4130
4131 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
4132 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
4133 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
4134
4135 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
4136 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
4137
4138 </ul></p>
4139
4140 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4141 Edu?</strong></p>
4142
4143 <p><ul>
4144
4145 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
4146 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
4147 whole municipality areas.</li>
4148
4149 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
4150 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
4151 politicians.</li>
4152
4153 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
4154
4155 </ul></p>
4156
4157 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4158
4159 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
4160 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
4161 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
4162 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
4163 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
4164 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
4165
4166 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
4167 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
4168 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
4169 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
4170 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
4171
4172 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4173 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4174
4175 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
4176 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
4177 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
4178
4179       </div>
4180       <div class="tags">
4181
4182
4183         Tags: <a href="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>.
4184
4185
4186       </div>
4187     </div>
4188     <div class="padding"></div>
4189
4190     <div class="entry">
4191       <div class="title">
4192         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cutting_it_short___and_picking_the_right_tool_for_the_job.html">Cutting it short - and picking the right tool for the job</a>
4193       </div>
4194       <div class="date">
4195         30th April 2012
4196       </div>
4197       <div class="body">
4198         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
4199 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
4200
4201 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
4202 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
4203 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
4204 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
4205 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
4206 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
4207 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
4208 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
4209 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
4210 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
4211 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
4212 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
4213 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
4214 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
4215 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
4216 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
4217
4218 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
4219 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
4220 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
4221 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
4222 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
4223 finally found a Danish supplier
4224 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
4225 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
4226 days ago.</p>
4227
4228 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
4229 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
4230 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
4231 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
4232 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
4233 toys.</p>
4234
4235       </div>
4236       <div class="tags">
4237
4238
4239         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4240
4241
4242       </div>
4243     </div>
4244     <div class="padding"></div>
4245
4246     <div class="entry">
4247       <div class="title">
4248         <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>
4249       </div>
4250       <div class="date">
4251         26th April 2012
4252       </div>
4253       <div class="body">
4254         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
4255 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
4256 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
4257 that the video editor application included with
4258 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
4259 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
4260 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
4261
4262 <p><blockquote>
4263 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
4264 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
4265 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
4266 </blockquote></p>
4267
4268 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
4269
4270 <p><blockquote>
4271 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
4272 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
4273 </blockquote></p>
4274
4275 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
4276 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
4277 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
4278 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
4279 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
4280 video.  AMR is
4281 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
4282 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
4283 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
4284 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
4285 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
4286 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
4287 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
4288
4289 <p>I know why I prefer
4290 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
4291 standards</a> also for video.</p>
4292
4293       </div>
4294       <div class="tags">
4295
4296
4297         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>.
4298
4299
4300       </div>
4301     </div>
4302     <div class="padding"></div>
4303
4304     <div class="entry">
4305       <div class="title">
4306         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
4307       </div>
4308       <div class="date">
4309         19th April 2012
4310       </div>
4311       <div class="body">
4312         <p>Here in Norway, the
4313 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
4314 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
4315 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
4316 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
4317 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
4318 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
4319 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
4320 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
4321 on the same level.</p>
4322
4323 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
4324 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
4325 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
4326 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
4327 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
4328 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
4329 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
4330 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
4331 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
4332 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
4333 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
4334 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
4335 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
4336 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
4337 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
4338 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
4339 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
4340 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
4341
4342 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
4343 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
4344 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
4345 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
4346 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
4347 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
4348 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
4349 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
4350
4351 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
4352 from Simon Phipps
4353 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
4354 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
4355
4356 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
4357 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
4358 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
4359 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
4360 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
4361 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
4362 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
4363 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
4364 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
4365
4366       </div>
4367       <div class="tags">
4368
4369
4370         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>.
4371
4372
4373       </div>
4374     </div>
4375     <div class="padding"></div>
4376
4377     <div class="entry">
4378       <div class="title">
4379         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
4380       </div>
4381       <div class="date">
4382         15th April 2012
4383       </div>
4384       <div class="body">
4385         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
4386 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
4387 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
4388 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
4389 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
4390 up in the recently released
4391 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
4392 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
4393
4394 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4395
4396 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
4397 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
4398 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
4399 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
4400 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
4401 information technology and science/technology.</p>
4402
4403 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4404 project?</strong></p>
4405
4406 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
4407 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
4408 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
4409 contributing.</p>
4410
4411 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4412 Edu?</strong></p>
4413
4414 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
4415 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
4416 Debian Project!</p>
4417
4418 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4419 Edu?</strong></p>
4420
4421 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
4422 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
4423 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
4424 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
4425 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
4426 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
4427 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
4428
4429 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
4430 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
4431
4432 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4433
4434 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
4435 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
4436 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
4437 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
4438
4439 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4440 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4441
4442 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
4443 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
4444 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
4445 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
4446 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
4447 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
4448 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
4449
4450 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
4451 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
4452 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
4453 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
4454 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
4455 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
4456 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
4457 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
4458
4459       </div>
4460       <div class="tags">
4461
4462
4463         Tags: <a href="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>.
4464
4465
4466       </div>
4467     </div>
4468     <div class="padding"></div>
4469
4470     <div class="entry">
4471       <div class="title">
4472         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
4473       </div>
4474       <div class="date">
4475          8th April 2012
4476       </div>
4477       <div class="body">
4478         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
4479 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
4480 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
4481 contributor to the
4482 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
4483 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
4484
4485 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4486
4487 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
4488 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
4489
4490 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4491 project?</strong></p>
4492
4493 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
4494 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
4495 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
4496 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
4497 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
4498 "localisation".</p>
4499
4500 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4501 Edu?</strong></p>
4502
4503 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4504 Edu?</strong></p>
4505
4506 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
4507 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
4508 education system.</p>
4509
4510 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
4511 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
4512 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
4513 money on the latest hardware.</p>
4514
4515 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4516
4517 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
4518 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
4519 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
4520
4521 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4522 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4523
4524 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
4525 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
4526 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
4527
4528       </div>
4529       <div class="tags">
4530
4531
4532         Tags: <a href="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>.
4533
4534
4535       </div>
4536     </div>
4537     <div class="padding"></div>
4538
4539     <div class="entry">
4540       <div class="title">
4541         <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>
4542       </div>
4543       <div class="date">
4544          6th April 2012
4545       </div>
4546       <div class="body">
4547         <p>Recently I have spent time with
4548 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
4549 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
4550 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
4551 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
4552 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
4553 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
4554 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
4555 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
4556
4557 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
4558 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
4559 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
4560 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
4561 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
4562 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
4563 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
4564 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
4565
4566 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
4567 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
4568 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
4569 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
4570 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
4571 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
4572 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
4573 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
4574
4575 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
4576 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
4577 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
4578 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
4579 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
4580 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
4581 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
4582 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
4583 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
4584 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
4585
4586 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
4587 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
4588 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
4589 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
4590
4591 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
4592 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
4593
4594       </div>
4595       <div class="tags">
4596
4597
4598         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4599
4600
4601       </div>
4602     </div>
4603     <div class="padding"></div>
4604
4605     <div class="entry">
4606       <div class="title">
4607         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
4608       </div>
4609       <div class="date">
4610          5th April 2012
4611       </div>
4612       <div class="body">
4613         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
4614 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
4615 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
4616 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
4617 for schools.  Check out his article
4618 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
4619 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
4620
4621       </div>
4622       <div class="tags">
4623
4624
4625         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4626
4627
4628       </div>
4629     </div>
4630     <div class="padding"></div>
4631
4632     <div class="entry">
4633       <div class="title">
4634         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
4635       </div>
4636       <div class="date">
4637          1st April 2012
4638       </div>
4639       <div class="body">
4640         <p>Germany is a core area for the
4641 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
4642 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
4643 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
4644
4645 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4646
4647 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
4648 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
4649 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
4650 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
4651 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
4652 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
4653 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
4654 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
4655
4656 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
4657 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
4658 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
4659 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
4660 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
4661 the end of April this year.</p>
4662
4663 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4664 project?</strong></p>
4665
4666 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
4667 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
4668 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
4669 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
4670 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
4671 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
4672 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
4673 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
4674 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
4675 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
4676 Skolelinux.</p>
4677
4678 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
4679 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
4680 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
4681 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
4682 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
4683 the admin teachers.</p>
4684
4685 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4686 Edu?</strong></p>
4687
4688 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
4689 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
4690 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
4691
4692 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
4693 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
4694 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
4695 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
4696 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
4697
4698 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4699 Edu?</strong></p>
4700
4701 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
4702
4703 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4704
4705 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
4706 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
4707 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
4708 LibreOffice.</p>
4709
4710 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4711 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4712
4713 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
4714 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
4715 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
4716
4717       </div>
4718       <div class="tags">
4719
4720
4721         Tags: <a href="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>.
4722
4723
4724       </div>
4725     </div>
4726     <div class="padding"></div>
4727
4728     <div class="entry">
4729       <div class="title">
4730         <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>
4731       </div>
4732       <div class="date">
4733         25th March 2012
4734       </div>
4735       <div class="body">
4736         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
4737
4738 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
4739 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
4740 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
4741 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
4742 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
4743 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
4744 and download as a
4745 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
4746 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
4747
4748 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
4749   <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"' />
4750     <p>Download video as
4751       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
4752 </video></p>
4753
4754       </div>
4755       <div class="tags">
4756
4757
4758         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4759
4760
4761       </div>
4762     </div>
4763     <div class="padding"></div>
4764
4765     <div class="entry">
4766       <div class="title">
4767         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
4768       </div>
4769       <div class="date">
4770         19th March 2012
4771       </div>
4772       <div class="body">
4773         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
4774 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
4775 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
4776 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
4777 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
4778
4779 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4780
4781 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
4782 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
4783 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
4784 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
4785 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
4786 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
4787 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
4788 installations.</p>
4789
4790 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4791 project?</strong></p>
4792
4793 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
4794 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
4795 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
4796 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
4797 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
4798 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
4799 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
4800 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
4801 these things we decided to try it.</p>
4802
4803 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4804 Edu?</strong></p>
4805
4806 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
4807 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
4808 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
4809 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
4810 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
4811 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
4812 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
4813 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
4814
4815 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4816 Edu?</strong></p>
4817
4818 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
4819 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
4820 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
4821 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
4822 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
4823
4824 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4825
4826 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
4827 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
4828 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
4829 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
4830 that counts...)</p>
4831
4832 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4833 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4834
4835 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
4836 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
4837 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
4838 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
4839 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
4840 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
4841 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
4842 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
4843 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
4844 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
4845 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
4846
4847 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
4848 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
4849 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
4850
4851       </div>
4852       <div class="tags">
4853
4854
4855         Tags: <a href="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>.
4856
4857
4858       </div>
4859     </div>
4860     <div class="padding"></div>
4861
4862     <div class="entry">
4863       <div class="title">
4864         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
4865       </div>
4866       <div class="date">
4867         16th March 2012
4868       </div>
4869       <div class="body">
4870         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
4871 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
4872 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
4873 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
4874
4875 <ol>
4876
4877 <li>The documentation is written in a
4878 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
4879 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
4880 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
4881 docbook XML.</li>
4882
4883 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
4884 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
4885 with the translated text.</li>
4886
4887 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
4888 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
4889 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
4890 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
4891 images.</li>
4892
4893 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
4894 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
4895
4896 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
4897 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
4898
4899 </ol>
4900
4901 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
4902 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
4903 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
4904 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
4905 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
4906
4907 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
4908 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
4909 package</a>.</p>
4910
4911       </div>
4912       <div class="tags">
4913
4914
4915         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4916
4917
4918       </div>
4919     </div>
4920     <div class="padding"></div>
4921
4922     <div class="entry">
4923       <div class="title">
4924         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
4925       </div>
4926       <div class="date">
4927         11th March 2012
4928       </div>
4929       <div class="body">
4930         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
4931 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
4932 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
4933 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
4934 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
4935 you have not done so already.</p>
4936
4937 <p>I plan to present the new version at
4938 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
4939 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
4940 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
4941
4942       </div>
4943       <div class="tags">
4944
4945
4946         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4947
4948
4949       </div>
4950     </div>
4951     <div class="padding"></div>
4952
4953     <div class="entry">
4954       <div class="title">
4955         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
4956       </div>
4957       <div class="date">
4958          9th March 2012
4959       </div>
4960       <div class="body">
4961         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
4962 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
4963 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4964 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
4965 more international audience.</p>
4966
4967 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
4968 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
4969 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
4970 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
4971 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
4972 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
4973 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
4974
4975
4976 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4977
4978 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
4979 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
4980 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
4981 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
4982 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
4983 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
4984 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
4985 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
4986 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
4987 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
4988 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
4989
4990 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4991 project?</strong></p>
4992
4993 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
4994 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
4995 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
4996 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
4997 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
4998 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
4999 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
5000 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
5001 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
5002 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
5003 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
5004 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
5005 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
5006
5007 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5008 Edu?</strong></p>
5009
5010 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
5011 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
5012 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
5013 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
5014 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
5015 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
5016 Japan.</p>
5017
5018 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5019 Edu?</strong></p>
5020
5021 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
5022 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
5023 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
5024 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
5025 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
5026 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
5027 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
5028 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
5029 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
5030 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
5031 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
5032 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
5033 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
5034 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
5035 help.</p>
5036
5037 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5038
5039 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
5040 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
5041 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
5042 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
5043 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
5044 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
5045 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
5046 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
5047 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
5048 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
5049 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
5050
5051 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5052 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5053
5054 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
5055 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
5056 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
5057 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
5058 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
5059 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
5060 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
5061 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
5062 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
5063 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
5064 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
5065 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
5066
5067       </div>
5068       <div class="tags">
5069
5070
5071         Tags: <a href="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>.
5072
5073
5074       </div>
5075     </div>
5076     <div class="padding"></div>
5077
5078     <div class="entry">
5079       <div class="title">
5080         <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>
5081       </div>
5082       <div class="date">
5083          7th March 2012
5084       </div>
5085       <div class="body">
5086         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
5087
5088 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
5089 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
5090 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
5091 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
5092 download as a
5093 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
5094 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
5095
5096 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
5097   <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"' />
5098     <p>Download video as
5099       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
5100 </video></p>
5101
5102       </div>
5103       <div class="tags">
5104
5105
5106         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5107
5108
5109       </div>
5110     </div>
5111     <div class="padding"></div>
5112
5113     <div class="entry">
5114       <div class="title">
5115         <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>
5116       </div>
5117       <div class="date">
5118          4th March 2012
5119       </div>
5120       <div class="body">
5121         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
5122 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
5123 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
5124 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
5125 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
5126 need a software solution for your school.</p>
5127
5128       </div>
5129       <div class="tags">
5130
5131
5132         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5133
5134
5135       </div>
5136     </div>
5137     <div class="padding"></div>
5138
5139     <div class="entry">
5140       <div class="title">
5141         <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>
5142       </div>
5143       <div class="date">
5144          3rd March 2012
5145       </div>
5146       <div class="body">
5147         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
5148 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
5149 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
5150 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
5151 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
5152 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
5153 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
5154 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
5155 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
5156 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
5157 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
5158 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
5159 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
5160 year...</p>
5161
5162 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
5163 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
5164 name,
5165 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
5166 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
5167 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
5168 mean). I've been following
5169 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
5170 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
5171 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
5172 Check it out. :)</p>
5173
5174       </div>
5175       <div class="tags">
5176
5177
5178         Tags: <a href="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>.
5179
5180
5181       </div>
5182     </div>
5183     <div class="padding"></div>
5184
5185     <div class="entry">
5186       <div class="title">
5187         <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>
5188       </div>
5189       <div class="date">
5190         27th February 2012
5191       </div>
5192       <div class="body">
5193         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
5194 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
5195 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
5196 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
5197 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
5198 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
5199 need a software solution for your school.</p>
5200
5201       </div>
5202       <div class="tags">
5203
5204
5205         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5206
5207
5208       </div>
5209     </div>
5210     <div class="padding"></div>
5211
5212     <div class="entry">
5213       <div class="title">
5214         <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>
5215       </div>
5216       <div class="date">
5217         19th February 2012
5218       </div>
5219       <div class="body">
5220         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
5221 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
5222 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
5223 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
5224 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
5225 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
5226 solution for your school.</p>
5227
5228       </div>
5229       <div class="tags">
5230
5231
5232         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5233
5234
5235       </div>
5236     </div>
5237     <div class="padding"></div>
5238
5239     <div class="entry">
5240       <div class="title">
5241         <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>
5242       </div>
5243       <div class="date">
5244         14th February 2012
5245       </div>
5246       <div class="body">
5247         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
5248 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
5249 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
5250 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
5251 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
5252 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
5253 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
5254 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
5255 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
5256
5257 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
5258 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
5259 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
5260 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
5261 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
5262
5263 <blockquote><pre>
5264 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
5265 do
5266     printf "Failed disk $d: "
5267     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
5268 done
5269 </blockquote></pre>
5270
5271 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
5272 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
5273
5274 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
5275
5276 <blockquote><pre>
5277 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
5278 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
5279 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
5280 </blockquote></pre>
5281
5282 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
5283 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
5284 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
5285 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
5286 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
5287 mounted inside my box.</p>
5288
5289 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
5290 Software RAID in the
5291 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
5292 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
5293 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
5294 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
5295 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
5296 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
5297
5298       </div>
5299       <div class="tags">
5300
5301
5302         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>.
5303
5304
5305       </div>
5306     </div>
5307     <div class="padding"></div>
5308
5309     <div class="entry">
5310       <div class="title">
5311         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
5312       </div>
5313       <div class="date">
5314         13th February 2012
5315       </div>
5316       <div class="body">
5317         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
5318 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
5319 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
5320 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
5321 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
5322 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
5323 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
5324 change the global proxy setting by editing
5325 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
5326 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
5327
5328 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
5329 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
5330 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
5331
5332 <blockquote><pre>
5333 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
5334 {
5335    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
5336        isPlainHostName(host) ||
5337        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
5338       return "DIRECT";
5339    else
5340       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
5341 }
5342 </pre></blockquote>
5343
5344 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
5345
5346 <blockquote><pre>
5347 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
5348 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
5349 </pre></blockquote>
5350
5351 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
5352 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
5353 would be used for
5354 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
5355 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
5356 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
5357 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
5358 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
5359 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
5360 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
5361 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
5362 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
5363 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
5364
5365 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
5366 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
5367 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
5368 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
5369 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
5370 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
5371
5372 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
5373 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
5374 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
5375 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
5376 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
5377 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
5378 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
5379 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
5380 the network setup changes.</p>
5381
5382 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
5383 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
5384 draft</a> and a
5385 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
5386 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
5387
5388       </div>
5389       <div class="tags">
5390
5391
5392         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5393
5394
5395       </div>
5396     </div>
5397     <div class="padding"></div>
5398
5399     <div class="entry">
5400       <div class="title">
5401         <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>
5402       </div>
5403       <div class="date">
5404          5th February 2012
5405       </div>
5406       <div class="body">
5407         <p>Since the Lenny version of
5408 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
5409 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
5410 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
5411 in the morning.  This is done using the
5412 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
5413
5414 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
5415 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
5416 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
5417 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
5418 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
5419 the
5420 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
5421 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
5422 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
5423 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
5424 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
5425
5426 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
5427 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
5428 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
5429 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
5430 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
5431 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
5432 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
5433
5434 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
5435 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
5436 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
5437 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
5438 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
5439
5440       </div>
5441       <div class="tags">
5442
5443
5444         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5445
5446
5447       </div>
5448     </div>
5449     <div class="padding"></div>
5450
5451     <div class="entry">
5452       <div class="title">
5453         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Third beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
5454       </div>
5455       <div class="date">
5456          4th February 2012
5457       </div>
5458       <div class="body">
5459         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
5460 publish the third beta version of
5461 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
5462 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
5463 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
5464 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
5465 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
5466 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
5467 on the project announcement list.</p>
5468
5469 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
5470 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
5471
5472 <ul>
5473
5474 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
5475   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
5476   the installation.</li>
5477
5478 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
5479   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
5480
5481 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
5482   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
5483   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
5484
5485 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
5486   for the local system administrator is created during installation
5487   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
5488   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
5489   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
5490   up to date on the system.</li>
5491
5492 </ul>
5493
5494 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
5495 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
5496 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
5497 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
5498
5499 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
5500 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
5501 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
5502 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
5503 will see you there?</p>
5504
5505       </div>
5506       <div class="tags">
5507
5508
5509         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5510
5511
5512       </div>
5513     </div>
5514     <div class="padding"></div>
5515
5516     <div class="entry">
5517       <div class="title">
5518         <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>
5519       </div>
5520       <div class="date">
5521         27th January 2012
5522       </div>
5523       <div class="body">
5524         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
5525 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
5526 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
5527 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
5528 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
5529 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
5530 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
5531
5532 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
5533 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
5534 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
5535 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
5536 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
5537 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
5538 not taken care of by this.</p>
5539
5540 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
5541 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
5542 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
5543 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
5544 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
5545 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
5546 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
5547 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
5548 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
5549 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
5550 firmware packages.</p>
5551
5552 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
5553 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
5554 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
5555 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
5556 initrd with extra firmware, the
5557 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
5558 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
5559 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
5560
5561 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
5562 network cards working.  For this,
5563 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
5564 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
5565 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
5566
5567 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
5568 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
5569 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
5570
5571 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
5572 try.</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>.
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/Setting_up_a_new_school_with_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Setting up a new school with Debian Edu/Squeeze</a>
5588       </div>
5589       <div class="date">
5590         25th January 2012
5591       </div>
5592       <div class="body">
5593         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
5594 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
5595 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
5596 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
5597 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
5598
5599 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
5600 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
5601 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
5602 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
5603 this is done, log on to the central server and run
5604 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
5605 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
5606 will look similar to this:</p>
5607
5608 <p><blockquote><pre>
5609 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
5610 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
5611 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.
5612
5613 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
5614
5615 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5616 enter password: *******
5617 %
5618 </pre></blockquote></p>
5619
5620 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
5621 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
5622 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
5623 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
5624 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
5625 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
5626 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
5627 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
5628 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
5629 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
5630 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
5631 automatically.</p>
5632
5633 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
5634 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
5635
5636 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
5637 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
5638 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
5639
5640       </div>
5641       <div class="tags">
5642
5643
5644         Tags: <a href="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>.
5645
5646
5647       </div>
5648     </div>
5649     <div class="padding"></div>
5650
5651     <div class="entry">
5652       <div class="title">
5653         <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>
5654       </div>
5655       <div class="date">
5656         10th January 2012
5657       </div>
5658       <div class="body">
5659         <p>In the Squeeze version of
5660 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
5661 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
5662 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
5663 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
5664 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
5665 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
5666 first time.</p>
5667
5668 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
5669 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
5670 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
5671 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
5672
5673 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
5674 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
5675 new setting.</p>
5676
5677 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
5678 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
5679 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
5680
5681       </div>
5682       <div class="tags">
5683
5684
5685         Tags: <a href="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>.
5686
5687
5688       </div>
5689     </div>
5690     <div class="padding"></div>
5691
5692     <div class="entry">
5693       <div class="title">
5694         <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>
5695       </div>
5696       <div class="date">
5697          7th January 2012
5698       </div>
5699       <div class="body">
5700         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
5701 the second beta version of
5702 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
5703 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
5704 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
5705 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
5706 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
5707 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
5708 on the project announcement list.</p>
5709
5710       </div>
5711       <div class="tags">
5712
5713
5714         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5715
5716
5717       </div>
5718     </div>
5719     <div class="padding"></div>
5720
5721     <div class="entry">
5722       <div class="title">
5723         <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>
5724       </div>
5725       <div class="date">
5726          3rd January 2012
5727       </div>
5728       <div class="body">
5729         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
5730 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
5731 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
5732 interesting.</p>
5733
5734 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
5735 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
5736 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
5737 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
5738 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
5739 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
5740 wrap up its tasks.</p>
5741
5742 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
5743 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
5744 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
5745 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
5746 because I was typing.</P>
5747
5748 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
5749 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
5750 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
5751 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
5752 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
5753 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
5754 generate entropy.</p>
5755
5756 <p>The fix is in
5757 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
5758 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
5759 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
5760 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
5761
5762       </div>
5763       <div class="tags">
5764
5765
5766         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5767
5768
5769       </div>
5770     </div>
5771     <div class="padding"></div>
5772
5773     <div class="entry">
5774       <div class="title">
5775         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
5776       </div>
5777       <div class="date">
5778         21st November 2011
5779       </div>
5780       <div class="body">
5781         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
5782 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
5783 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
5784 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
5785 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
5786 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
5787 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
5788 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
5789 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
5790 the tools to do so.</p>
5791
5792 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
5793 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
5794 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
5795 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
5796
5797 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
5798 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
5799 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
5800 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
5801 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
5802 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
5803 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
5804 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
5805
5806 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
5807 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
5808 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
5809
5810 <p><pre>
5811 #!/usr/bin/perl
5812 use strict;
5813 use warnings;
5814 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
5815 BEGIN {
5816     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
5817     my %rhelmodules = (
5818         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
5819         );
5820     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
5821         eval "use $module;";
5822         if ($@) {
5823             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
5824             system("yum install -y $pkg");
5825             eval "use $module;";
5826         }
5827     }
5828 }
5829 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
5830
5831 upgrade_dell();
5832
5833 exit 0;
5834
5835 sub run_firmware_script {
5836     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
5837     unless ($script) {
5838         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
5839         exit 1
5840     }
5841     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
5842
5843     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
5844         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
5845     } else {
5846         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
5847     }
5848 }
5849
5850 sub run_firmware_scripts {
5851     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
5852     # Run firmware packages
5853     for my $dir (@dirs) {
5854         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
5855         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
5856         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
5857             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
5858             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
5859         }
5860         closedir $dh;
5861     }
5862 }
5863
5864 sub download {
5865     my $url = shift;
5866     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
5867     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
5868 }
5869
5870 sub upgrade_dell {
5871     my @dirs;
5872     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5873     chomp $product;
5874
5875     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
5876
5877         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
5878         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
5879
5880         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
5881             CLEANUP => 1
5882             );
5883         chdir($tmpdir);
5884         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
5885         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
5886         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
5887         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
5888         my $fwopts = "-q";
5889         if (@paths) {
5890             for my $url (@paths) {
5891                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
5892             }
5893             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
5894         } else {
5895             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5896             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5897         }
5898         chdir('/');
5899     } else {
5900         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5901         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5902     }
5903 }
5904
5905 sub fetch_dell_fw {
5906     my $path = shift;
5907     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
5908     download($url);
5909 }
5910
5911 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
5912 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
5913 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
5914 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
5915     my $filename = shift;
5916
5917     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5918     chomp $product;
5919     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
5920
5921     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
5922
5923     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
5924     my @paths;
5925     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
5926         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
5927         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
5928         my $oscode;
5929         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
5930             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
5931         } else {
5932             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
5933         }
5934         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
5935         {
5936             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
5937         }
5938     }
5939     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
5940         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
5941
5942         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
5943         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
5944
5945         my $cpath = $component->{path};
5946         for my $path (@paths) {
5947             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
5948                 push(@paths, $cpath);
5949             }
5950         }
5951     }
5952     return @paths;
5953 }
5954 </pre>
5955
5956 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
5957 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
5958 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
5959 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
5960 outdated.</p>
5961
5962       </div>
5963       <div class="tags">
5964
5965
5966         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>.
5967
5968
5969       </div>
5970     </div>
5971     <div class="padding"></div>
5972
5973     <div class="entry">
5974       <div class="title">
5975         <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>
5976       </div>
5977       <div class="date">
5978          7th October 2011
5979       </div>
5980       <div class="body">
5981         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
5982 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
5983 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
5984 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
5985 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
5986 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
5987 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
5988 models.</p>
5989
5990 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
5991 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
5992 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
5993 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
5994
5995 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
5996 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
5997 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
5998 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
5999 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
6000 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
6001 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
6002 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
6003 distributed.</p>
6004
6005 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
6006
6007 <ul>
6008
6009 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
6010   other relevant equipment.</li>
6011
6012 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
6013
6014 </ul>
6015
6016 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
6017 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
6018 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
6019 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
6020 books available.</p>
6021
6022 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
6023 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
6024 libraries. :)</p>
6025
6026       </div>
6027       <div class="tags">
6028
6029
6030         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>.
6031
6032
6033       </div>
6034     </div>
6035     <div class="padding"></div>
6036
6037     <div class="entry">
6038       <div class="title">
6039         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
6040       </div>
6041       <div class="date">
6042         17th September 2011
6043       </div>
6044       <div class="body">
6045         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
6046 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
6047 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
6048 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
6049 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
6050 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
6051 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
6052 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
6053
6054 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
6055
6056 <blockquote><pre>
6057 #!/bin/sh
6058 # apt-get install lsdvd
6059 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
6060 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
6061 </pre></blockquote>
6062
6063 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
6064 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
6065 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
6066 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
6067
6068 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
6069 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
6070 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
6071 back as an ISO.
6072
6073 <blockquote><pre>
6074 #!/bin/sh
6075 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
6076 set -e
6077 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
6078 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
6079 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
6080 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
6081 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
6082 </pre></blockquote>
6083
6084 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
6085
6086 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
6087 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
6088 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
6089 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
6090 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
6091
6092 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
6093 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
6094 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
6095 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
6096 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
6097 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
6098
6099       </div>
6100       <div class="tags">
6101
6102
6103         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>.
6104
6105
6106       </div>
6107     </div>
6108     <div class="padding"></div>
6109
6110     <div class="entry">
6111       <div class="title">
6112         <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>
6113       </div>
6114       <div class="date">
6115          4th August 2011
6116       </div>
6117       <div class="body">
6118         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
6119 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
6120 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
6121 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
6122 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
6123 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
6124 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
6125 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
6126 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
6127
6128 <p><blockquote>
6129 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
6130 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
6131 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
6132 </blockquote></p>
6133
6134 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
6135 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
6136 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
6137 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
6138 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
6139 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
6140 hard to explain.</p>
6141
6142 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
6143 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
6144 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
6145 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
6146 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
6147 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
6148 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
6149 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
6150 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
6151 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
6152 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
6153 mode).</p>
6154
6155 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
6156 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
6157 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
6158 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
6159 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
6160 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
6161 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
6162 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
6163 after visiting single user mode.</p>
6164
6165 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
6166 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
6167 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
6168 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
6169 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
6170 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
6171 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
6172 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
6173
6174 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
6175 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
6176 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
6177
6178       </div>
6179       <div class="tags">
6180
6181
6182         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>.
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/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</a>
6192       </div>
6193       <div class="date">
6194         30th July 2011
6195       </div>
6196       <div class="body">
6197         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
6198 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
6199 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
6200 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
6201 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
6202 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
6203 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
6204 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
6205 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
6206 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
6207 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
6208 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
6209 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
6210
6211 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
6212 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
6213 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
6214 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
6215 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
6216 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
6217 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
6218 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
6219 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
6220
6221 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
6222 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
6223 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
6224 is presented.</p>
6225
6226 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
6227 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
6228 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
6229 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
6230 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
6231 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
6232 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
6233 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
6234 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
6235 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
6236 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
6237 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
6238 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
6239 find time to push this forward.</p>
6240
6241       </div>
6242       <div class="tags">
6243
6244
6245         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>.
6246
6247
6248       </div>
6249     </div>
6250     <div class="padding"></div>
6251
6252     <div class="entry">
6253       <div class="title">
6254         <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>
6255       </div>
6256       <div class="date">
6257         29th July 2011
6258       </div>
6259       <div class="body">
6260         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
6261 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
6262 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
6263 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
6264 issues.</p>
6265
6266 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
6267 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
6268 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
6269
6270 <ol>
6271
6272 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
6273 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
6274 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
6275 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
6276 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
6277 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
6278 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
6279 Debian.</li>
6280
6281 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
6282 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
6283 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
6284 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
6285 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
6286 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
6287 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
6288 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
6289 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
6290 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
6291 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
6292 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
6293 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
6294
6295 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
6296 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
6297 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
6298 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
6299 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
6300 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
6301 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
6302 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
6303 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
6304 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
6305
6306 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
6307 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
6308 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
6309 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
6310 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
6311 latter behaviour.</li>
6312
6313 </ol>
6314
6315 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
6316 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
6317 it do not matter much.</p>
6318
6319 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
6320 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
6321 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
6322
6323       </div>
6324       <div class="tags">
6325
6326
6327         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>.
6328
6329
6330       </div>
6331     </div>
6332     <div class="padding"></div>
6333
6334     <div class="entry">
6335       <div class="title">
6336         <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>
6337       </div>
6338       <div class="date">
6339         26th July 2011
6340       </div>
6341       <div class="body">
6342         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
6343 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
6344 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
6345 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
6346 security support for a few years.</p>
6347
6348 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
6349 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
6350 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
6351 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
6352 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
6353 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
6354 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
6355 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
6356 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
6357 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
6358 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
6359 easier in the future.</p>
6360
6361 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
6362 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
6363 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
6364 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
6365 do not have time for.</p>
6366
6367       </div>
6368       <div class="tags">
6369
6370
6371         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>.
6372
6373
6374       </div>
6375     </div>
6376     <div class="padding"></div>
6377
6378     <div class="entry">
6379       <div class="title">
6380         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
6381       </div>
6382       <div class="date">
6383         20th June 2011
6384       </div>
6385       <div class="body">
6386         <p>Reading
6387 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
6388 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
6389 parts of the
6390 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
6391 and
6392 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
6393 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
6394 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
6395 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
6396
6397       </div>
6398       <div class="tags">
6399
6400
6401         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>.
6402
6403
6404       </div>
6405     </div>
6406     <div class="padding"></div>
6407
6408     <div class="entry">
6409       <div class="title">
6410         <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>
6411       </div>
6412       <div class="date">
6413         30th April 2011
6414       </div>
6415       <div class="body">
6416         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
6417 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
6418 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
6419 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
6420 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
6421 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
6422 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
6423 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
6424 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
6425 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
6426
6427 <p>Where is it?  Visit
6428 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
6429 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
6430 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
6431 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
6432
6433       </div>
6434       <div class="tags">
6435
6436
6437         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>.
6438
6439
6440       </div>
6441     </div>
6442     <div class="padding"></div>
6443
6444     <div class="entry">
6445       <div class="title">
6446         <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>
6447       </div>
6448       <div class="date">
6449         29th April 2011
6450       </div>
6451       <div class="body">
6452         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
6453 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
6454 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
6455 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
6456 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
6457 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
6458 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
6459 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
6460 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
6461 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
6462 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
6463 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
6464 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
6465
6466 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
6467 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
6468 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
6469 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
6470 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
6471 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
6472 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
6473 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
6474 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
6475 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
6476 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
6477 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
6478 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
6479
6480 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
6481 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
6482 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
6483 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
6484 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
6485 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
6486 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
6487 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
6488 it.</p>
6489
6490 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
6491 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
6492 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
6493 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
6494 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
6495 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
6496 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
6497
6498 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
6499 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
6500 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
6501 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
6502 and range= options.</p>
6503
6504 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
6505 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
6506 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
6507 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
6508 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
6509 to best handle this.  I've noticed
6510 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
6511 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
6512 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
6513 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
6514
6515 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
6516 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
6517 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
6518 discussions instead of only
6519 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
6520 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
6521 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
6522 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
6523 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
6524 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
6525
6526       </div>
6527       <div class="tags">
6528
6529
6530         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>.
6531
6532
6533       </div>
6534     </div>
6535     <div class="padding"></div>
6536
6537     <div class="entry">
6538       <div class="title">
6539         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
6540       </div>
6541       <div class="date">
6542          6th April 2011
6543       </div>
6544       <div class="body">
6545         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
6546 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
6547 A few days ago the project
6548 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
6549 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
6550 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
6551 into Gnash.</p>
6552
6553       </div>
6554       <div class="tags">
6555
6556
6557         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>.
6558
6559
6560       </div>
6561     </div>
6562     <div class="padding"></div>
6563
6564     <div class="entry">
6565       <div class="title">
6566         <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>
6567       </div>
6568       <div class="date">
6569          3rd April 2011
6570       </div>
6571       <div class="body">
6572         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
6573 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
6574 update in English.</p>
6575
6576 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
6577 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
6578 of the British service
6579 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
6580 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
6581 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
6582 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
6583 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
6584 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
6585 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
6586 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
6587 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
6588 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
6589 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
6590 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
6591 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
6592
6593 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
6594 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
6595 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
6596 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
6597 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
6598 public infrastructure.</p>
6599
6600 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
6601 such service?</p>
6602
6603       </div>
6604       <div class="tags">
6605
6606
6607         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>.
6608
6609
6610       </div>
6611     </div>
6612     <div class="padding"></div>
6613
6614     <div class="entry">
6615       <div class="title">
6616         <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>
6617       </div>
6618       <div class="date">
6619         28th January 2011
6620       </div>
6621       <div class="body">
6622         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
6623 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
6624 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
6625 available on the Internet, and check our locally
6626 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
6627 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
6628 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
6629 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
6630 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
6631 out which security holes were present in our free software
6632 collection.</p>
6633
6634 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
6635 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
6636 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
6637 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
6638 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
6639 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
6640 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
6641 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
6642 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
6643 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
6644 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
6645 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
6646 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
6647 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
6648 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
6649 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
6650
6651 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
6652 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
6653 check out, one could look up
6654 <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
6655 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
6656 The most recent one is
6657 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
6658 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
6659 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
6660
6661 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
6662 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
6663 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
6664 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
6665 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
6666 security issues out.</p>
6667
6668 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
6669 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
6670 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
6671 RHEL is providing
6672 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
6673 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
6674 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
6675
6676 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
6677 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
6678 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
6679 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
6680 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
6681 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
6682 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
6683 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
6684 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
6685 established soon.</p>
6686
6687 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
6688 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
6689 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
6690 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
6691 for their packages.</p>
6692
6693       </div>
6694       <div class="tags">
6695
6696
6697         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>.
6698
6699
6700       </div>
6701     </div>
6702     <div class="padding"></div>
6703
6704     <div class="entry">
6705       <div class="title">
6706         <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>
6707       </div>
6708       <div class="date">
6709         23rd January 2011
6710       </div>
6711       <div class="body">
6712         <p>In the
6713 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
6714 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
6715 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
6716 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
6717 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
6718 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
6719 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
6720 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
6721 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
6722 one of my machines like this:</p>
6723
6724 <pre>
6725 loaded modules:
6726 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
6727 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
6728 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
6729 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
6730 10de:03ec pata_amd
6731 10de:03f6 sata_nv
6732 1022:1103 k8temp
6733 109e:036e bttv
6734 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
6735 11ab:4364 sky2
6736 </pre>
6737
6738 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
6739 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
6740
6741 <pre>
6742 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
6743     echo loaded pci modules:
6744     (
6745         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
6746         for address in * ; do
6747             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
6748                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
6749                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
6750                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
6751                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
6752                     echo "$id $module"
6753                 fi
6754             fi
6755         done
6756     )
6757     echo
6758 fi
6759 </pre>
6760
6761 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
6762 mappings:</p>
6763
6764 <pre>
6765 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
6766     echo loaded usb modules:
6767     (
6768         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
6769         for address in * ; do
6770             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
6771                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
6772                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
6773                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
6774                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
6775                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
6776                         echo "$id $module"
6777                     fi
6778                 fi
6779             fi
6780         done
6781     )
6782     echo
6783 fi
6784 </pre>
6785
6786 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
6787 well.</p>
6788
6789       </div>
6790       <div class="tags">
6791
6792
6793         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>.
6794
6795
6796       </div>
6797     </div>
6798     <div class="padding"></div>
6799
6800     <div class="entry">
6801       <div class="title">
6802         <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>
6803       </div>
6804       <div class="date">
6805         16th January 2011
6806       </div>
6807       <div class="body">
6808         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
6809 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
6810 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
6811 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
6812 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
6813 the Wikipedia article on
6814 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
6815 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
6816 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
6817 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
6818 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
6819 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
6820 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
6821 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
6822 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
6823 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
6824 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
6825 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
6826
6827 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
6828 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
6829 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
6830 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
6831 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
6832 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
6833 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
6834 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
6835 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
6836 from last week</a>.</p>
6837
6838 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
6839 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
6840 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
6841 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
6842 was without royalties and license terms, check out
6843 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
6844 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
6845
6846 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
6847 available from
6848 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
6849 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
6850 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
6851
6852 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
6853 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
6854 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
6855 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
6856
6857       </div>
6858       <div class="tags">
6859
6860
6861         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>.
6862
6863
6864       </div>
6865     </div>
6866     <div class="padding"></div>
6867
6868     <div class="entry">
6869       <div class="title">
6870         <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>
6871       </div>
6872       <div class="date">
6873         12th January 2011
6874       </div>
6875       <div class="body">
6876         <p>Today I discovered
6877 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
6878 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
6879 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
6880 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
6881 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
6882 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
6883 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
6884 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
6885 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
6886 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
6887 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
6888 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
6889 on the Google announcement is available from
6890 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
6891 A good read. :)</p>
6892
6893 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
6894 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
6895 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
6896 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
6897 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
6898 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
6899 browsers support H.264, and others support
6900 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
6901 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
6902 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
6903 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
6904 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
6905 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
6906 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
6907 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
6908
6909 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
6910 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
6911 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
6912 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
6913 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
6914 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
6915 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
6916
6917 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
6918 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
6919 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
6920 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
6921 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
6922 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
6923 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
6924
6925 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
6926 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
6927 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
6928 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
6929 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
6930 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
6931 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
6932
6933 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
6934 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
6935 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
6936 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
6937 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
6938 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
6939 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
6940 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
6941 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
6942 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
6943 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
6944 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
6945 I guess time will tell.</p>
6946
6947 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
6948 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
6949 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
6950
6951       </div>
6952       <div class="tags">
6953
6954
6955         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>.
6956
6957
6958       </div>
6959     </div>
6960     <div class="padding"></div>
6961
6962     <div class="entry">
6963       <div class="title">
6964         <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>
6965       </div>
6966       <div class="date">
6967         30th December 2010
6968       </div>
6969       <div class="body">
6970         <p>After trying to
6971 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
6972 Ogg Theora</a> to
6973 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
6974 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
6975 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
6976 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
6977 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
6978 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
6979 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
6980
6981 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
6982 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
6983 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
6984 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
6985 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
6986 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
6987 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
6988
6989 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
6990 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
6991
6992       </div>
6993       <div class="tags">
6994
6995
6996         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>.
6997
6998
6999       </div>
7000     </div>
7001     <div class="padding"></div>
7002
7003     <div class="entry">
7004       <div class="title">
7005         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
7006       </div>
7007       <div class="date">
7008         27th December 2010
7009       </div>
7010       <div class="body">
7011         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
7012 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
7013 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
7014 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
7015 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
7016 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
7017 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
7018 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
7019
7020 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
7021 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
7022 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
7023 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
7024 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
7025 page</a>.</p>
7026
7027 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
7028 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
7029 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
7030 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
7031 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
7032 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
7033 specification on equal terms.</p>
7034
7035 <blockquote>
7036
7037 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
7038 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
7039 open standard:</p>
7040
7041 <ul>
7042
7043 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
7044 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
7045 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
7046 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
7047
7048 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
7049 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
7050 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
7051 nominal fee.</li>
7052
7053 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
7054 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
7055 free basis.</li>
7056
7057 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
7058
7059 </ul>
7060 </blockquote>
7061
7062 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
7063 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
7064 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
7065 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
7066 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
7067 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
7068 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
7069
7070 <blockquote>
7071
7072 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
7073
7074 <ol>
7075
7076 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
7077 tilgængelig.</li>
7078
7079 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
7080 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
7081
7082 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
7083 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
7084
7085 </ol>
7086
7087 </blockquote>
7088
7089 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
7090 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
7091
7092 <blockquote>
7093
7094 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
7095
7096 <ol>
7097
7098 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
7099 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
7100
7101 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
7102 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
7103 Standard themselves;</li>
7104
7105 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
7106 any party or in any business model;</li>
7107
7108 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
7109 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
7110 parties;</li>
7111
7112 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
7113 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
7114 parties.</li>
7115
7116 </ol>
7117
7118 </blockquote>
7119
7120 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
7121 its
7122 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
7123 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
7124
7125 <blockquote>
7126 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
7127
7128 <ul>
7129
7130 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
7131   democratic:
7132
7133          <ul>
7134
7135          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
7136             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
7137             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
7138             and managed.</li>
7139
7140          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
7141             method, can be changed through input from all
7142             participants.</li>
7143
7144          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
7145             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
7146
7147          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
7148             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
7149
7150          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
7151             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
7152             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
7153
7154          </ul>
7155
7156 </li>
7157
7158 </ul>
7159
7160 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
7161 <ul>
7162
7163 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
7164   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
7165   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
7166   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
7167   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
7168
7169 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
7170   a technical or economic barriers</li>
7171
7172 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
7173   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
7174   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
7175   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
7176   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
7177   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
7178   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
7179   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
7180   intended to function.</li>
7181
7182 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
7183   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
7184   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
7185
7186 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
7187   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
7188   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
7189   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
7190   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
7191   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
7192   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
7193   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
7194
7195       <ul>
7196
7197       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
7198         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
7199         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
7200
7201       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
7202         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
7203         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
7204         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
7205
7206       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
7207         licensor</li>
7208
7209       </ul>
7210 </li>
7211
7212 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
7213   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
7214   or restricted licensing terms</li>
7215
7216 </ul>
7217
7218 </blockquote>
7219
7220 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
7221 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
7222 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
7223 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
7224 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
7225 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
7226 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
7227 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
7228 Standards.</p>
7229
7230       </div>
7231       <div class="tags">
7232
7233
7234         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>.
7235
7236
7237       </div>
7238     </div>
7239     <div class="padding"></div>
7240
7241     <div class="entry">
7242       <div class="title">
7243         <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>
7244       </div>
7245       <div class="date">
7246         25th December 2010
7247       </div>
7248       <div class="body">
7249         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
7250 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
7251
7252 <blockquote>
7253
7254 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
7255 as follows:</p>
7256
7257 <ol>
7258
7259 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
7260 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
7261 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
7262
7263 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
7264 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
7265 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
7266 parties.</li>
7267
7268 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
7269 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
7270 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
7271
7272 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
7273 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
7274
7275 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
7276
7277 </ol>
7278
7279 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
7280 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
7281 products based on the standard.</p>
7282 </blockquote>
7283
7284 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
7285 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
7286 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
7287 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
7288 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
7289 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
7290 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
7291 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
7292
7293 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
7294
7295 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
7296 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
7297 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
7298 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
7299 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
7300 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
7301 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
7302 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
7303 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
7304 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
7305 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
7306 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
7307 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
7308 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
7309
7310 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
7311
7312 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
7313 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
7314 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
7315 documentation indicating this.</p>
7316
7317 <p>According to
7318 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
7319 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
7320 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
7321 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
7322 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
7323 report is correct.</p>
7324
7325 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
7326
7327 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
7328 container format</a> and both the
7329 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
7330 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
7331 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
7332
7333 <blockquote>
7334
7335 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
7336 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
7337 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
7338 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
7339 specification compliance.
7340
7341 </blockquote>
7342
7343 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
7344 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
7345 this is the term:<p>
7346
7347 <blockquote>
7348
7349 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
7350 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
7351 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
7352 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
7353 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
7354 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
7355 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
7356 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
7357 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
7358 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
7359 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
7360 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
7361
7362 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
7363 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
7364 </blockquote>
7365
7366 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
7367 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
7368 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
7369 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
7370 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
7371
7372 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
7373
7374 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
7375 Theora format.
7376 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
7377 and
7378 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
7379 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
7380 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
7381 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
7382 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
7383 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
7384 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
7385 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
7386
7387 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
7388
7389 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
7390
7391 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
7392
7393 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
7394 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
7395 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
7396 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
7397 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
7398 this.</p>
7399
7400 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
7401 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
7402
7403       </div>
7404       <div class="tags">
7405
7406
7407         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>.
7408
7409
7410       </div>
7411     </div>
7412     <div class="padding"></div>
7413
7414     <div class="entry">
7415       <div class="title">
7416         <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>
7417       </div>
7418       <div class="date">
7419         25th December 2010
7420       </div>
7421       <div class="body">
7422         <p>A few days ago
7423 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
7424 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
7425 2.0 of
7426 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
7427 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
7428 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
7429 Nothing very surprising there, given
7430 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
7431 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
7432 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
7433 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
7434 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
7435 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
7436 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
7437 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
7438 standard definition from its content.</p>
7439
7440 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
7441 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
7442 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
7443 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
7444 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
7445 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
7446 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
7447 background information about that story is available in
7448 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
7449 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
7450
7451 <blockquote>
7452 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
7453 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
7454 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
7455
7456 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
7457
7458 <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>
7459
7460 <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>
7461
7462 <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>
7463
7464 <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>
7465
7466 <p>
7467 <ul>
7468 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
7469 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
7470 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
7471 </ul>
7472 </p>
7473
7474 <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>
7475
7476 <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>
7477
7478 <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>
7479
7480 <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>
7481
7482 <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>
7483
7484
7485 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
7486 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
7487 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
7488 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
7489 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
7490 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
7491
7492 </p>
7493
7494 <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>
7495
7496 <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>
7497
7498 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
7499
7500 <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>
7501
7502 <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>
7503
7504 <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>
7505
7506 <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>
7507
7508 <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>
7509
7510 <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>
7511
7512 <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>
7513
7514 <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>
7515
7516 <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>
7517
7518 <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>
7519
7520 <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>
7521
7522 <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>
7523
7524 <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>
7525
7526 <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>
7527
7528 <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>
7529
7530 <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>
7531
7532 <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>
7533
7534 <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>
7535
7536 <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>
7537
7538 <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>
7539
7540 <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>
7541
7542 <p>On security:</p>
7543
7544 <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>
7545
7546 <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>
7547
7548 <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>
7549
7550 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
7551
7552 <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>
7553
7554 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
7555
7556 <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>
7557
7558 <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>
7559
7560 <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>
7561
7562 <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>
7563
7564 <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>
7565
7566 <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>
7567
7568 <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>
7569
7570 <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>
7571
7572 <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>
7573
7574 <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>
7575
7576 <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>
7577
7578 <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>
7579
7580 <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>
7581
7582 <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>
7583
7584 <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>
7585
7586 <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>
7587
7588 <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>
7589
7590 <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>
7591
7592 <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>
7593
7594 <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>
7595
7596 <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>
7597
7598 <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>
7599
7600 <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>
7601
7602 <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>
7603
7604 <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>
7605
7606 <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>
7607
7608 <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>
7609
7610 <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>
7611
7612 <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>
7613
7614 <p>Cordially,<br>
7615 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
7616 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
7617 </blockquote>
7618
7619       </div>
7620       <div class="tags">
7621
7622
7623         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>.
7624
7625
7626       </div>
7627     </div>
7628     <div class="padding"></div>
7629
7630     <div class="entry">
7631       <div class="title">
7632         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
7633       </div>
7634       <div class="date">
7635         25th December 2010
7636       </div>
7637       <div class="body">
7638         <p>Half a year ago I
7639 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
7640 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
7641 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
7642 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
7643
7644 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
7645 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
7646 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
7647 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
7648 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
7649 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
7650 got such a great test tool available.</p>
7651
7652       </div>
7653       <div class="tags">
7654
7655
7656         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>.
7657
7658
7659       </div>
7660     </div>
7661     <div class="padding"></div>
7662
7663     <div class="entry">
7664       <div class="title">
7665         <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>
7666       </div>
7667       <div class="date">
7668         22nd December 2010
7669       </div>
7670       <div class="body">
7671         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
7672 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
7673 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
7674 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
7675 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
7676 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
7677 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
7678 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
7679 university.</p>
7680
7681 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
7682 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
7683 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
7684 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
7685 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
7686 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
7687 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
7688 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
7689
7690 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
7691 I perform on a new model.</p>
7692
7693 <ul>
7694
7695 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
7696 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
7697 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
7698
7699 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
7700 installation, X.org is working.</li>
7701
7702 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
7703 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
7704 reported by the program.</li>
7705
7706 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
7707 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
7708 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
7709 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
7710 normally test this by playing
7711 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
7712 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
7713
7714 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
7715 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
7716
7717 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
7718 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
7719
7720 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
7721 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
7722
7723 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
7724 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
7725 few.</li>
7726
7727 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
7728 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
7729 notice this.</li>
7730
7731 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
7732 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
7733 resume.</li>
7734
7735 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
7736 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
7737 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
7738 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
7739 not.</li>
7740
7741 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
7742 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
7743 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
7744 existence.</li>
7745
7746 </ul>
7747
7748 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
7749 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
7750 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
7751 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
7752 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
7753 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
7754 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
7755 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
7756
7757       </div>
7758       <div class="tags">
7759
7760
7761         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>.
7762
7763
7764       </div>
7765     </div>
7766     <div class="padding"></div>
7767
7768     <div class="entry">
7769       <div class="title">
7770         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
7771       </div>
7772       <div class="date">
7773         11th December 2010
7774       </div>
7775       <div class="body">
7776         <p>As I continue to explore
7777 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
7778 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
7779 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
7780
7781 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
7782 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
7783 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
7784 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
7785 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
7786 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
7787 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
7788 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
7789 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
7790 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
7791 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
7792 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
7793 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
7794 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
7795 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
7796 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
7797 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
7798 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
7799 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
7800 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
7801
7802 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
7803 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
7804 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
7805 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
7806 If the Skolelinux foundation
7807 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
7808 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
7809 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
7810 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
7811 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
7812 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
7813 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
7814 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
7815
7816 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
7817 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
7818 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
7819 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
7820 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
7821 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
7822 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
7823 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
7824 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
7825 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
7826 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
7827 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
7828 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
7829 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
7830 currencies.</p>
7831
7832 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
7833 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
7834 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
7835 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
7836 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
7837 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
7838 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
7839 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
7840 BitCoins.  Check out
7841 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
7842 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
7843 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
7844 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
7845 yet.</p>
7846
7847 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
7848 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
7849 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
7850 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
7851 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
7852
7853       </div>
7854       <div class="tags">
7855
7856
7857         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>.
7858
7859
7860       </div>
7861     </div>
7862     <div class="padding"></div>
7863
7864     <div class="entry">
7865       <div class="title">
7866         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
7867       </div>
7868       <div class="date">
7869         10th December 2010
7870       </div>
7871       <div class="body">
7872         <p>With this weeks lawless
7873 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
7874 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
7875 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
7876 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
7877 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
7878 A blog post from
7879 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
7880 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
7881 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
7882 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
7883 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
7884 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
7885 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
7886
7887 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
7888 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
7889 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
7890 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
7891 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
7892 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
7893 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
7894 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
7895 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
7896 Debian</a> soon.</p>
7897
7898 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
7899 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
7900 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
7901 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
7902 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
7903 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
7904 you can even get
7905 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
7906 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
7907 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
7908 on the current exchange rates.</p>
7909
7910 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
7911 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
7912 donations to the address
7913 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
7914
7915       </div>
7916       <div class="tags">
7917
7918
7919         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>.
7920
7921
7922       </div>
7923     </div>
7924     <div class="padding"></div>
7925
7926     <div class="entry">
7927       <div class="title">
7928         <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>
7929       </div>
7930       <div class="date">
7931          9th December 2010
7932       </div>
7933       <div class="body">
7934         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
7935 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
7936 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
7937 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
7938 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
7939 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
7940 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
7941 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
7942 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
7943 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
7944 operational.</p>
7945
7946 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
7947 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
7948 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
7949 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
7950 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
7951 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
7952 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
7953
7954       </div>
7955       <div class="tags">
7956
7957
7958         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>.
7959
7960
7961       </div>
7962     </div>
7963     <div class="padding"></div>
7964
7965     <div class="entry">
7966       <div class="title">
7967         <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>
7968       </div>
7969       <div class="date">
7970         29th November 2010
7971       </div>
7972       <div class="body">
7973         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7974 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
7975 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
7976 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
7977 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
7978 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
7979
7980 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
7981 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
7982 will hold its
7983 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
7984 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
7985 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
7986 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
7987 vote this year.</p>
7988
7989       </div>
7990       <div class="tags">
7991
7992
7993         Tags: <a href="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>.
7994
7995
7996       </div>
7997     </div>
7998     <div class="padding"></div>
7999
8000     <div class="entry">
8001       <div class="title">
8002         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
8003       </div>
8004       <div class="date">
8005         27th November 2010
8006       </div>
8007       <div class="body">
8008         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
8009 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
8010 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
8011 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
8012 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
8013 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
8014 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
8015 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
8016
8017 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
8018 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
8019 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
8020 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
8021 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
8022 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
8023 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
8024 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
8025 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
8026 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
8027 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
8028
8029 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
8030 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
8031 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
8032 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
8033 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
8034 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
8035 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
8036 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
8037 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
8038 what is going on.</p>
8039
8040       </div>
8041       <div class="tags">
8042
8043
8044         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>.
8045
8046
8047       </div>
8048     </div>
8049     <div class="padding"></div>
8050
8051     <div class="entry">
8052       <div class="title">
8053         <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>
8054       </div>
8055       <div class="date">
8056         22nd November 2010
8057       </div>
8058       <div class="body">
8059         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
8060 upgrade testing of the
8061 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
8062 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
8063 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
8064 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
8065
8066 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
8067
8068 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8069
8070 <blockquote><p>
8071   apache2.2-bin
8072   aptdaemon
8073   baobab
8074   binfmt-support
8075   browser-plugin-gnash
8076   cheese-common
8077   cli-common
8078   cups-pk-helper
8079   dmz-cursor-theme
8080   empathy
8081   empathy-common
8082   freedesktop-sound-theme
8083   freeglut3
8084   gconf-defaults-service
8085   gdm-themes
8086   gedit-plugins
8087   geoclue
8088   geoclue-hostip
8089   geoclue-localnet
8090   geoclue-manual
8091   geoclue-yahoo
8092   gnash
8093   gnash-common
8094   gnome
8095   gnome-backgrounds
8096   gnome-cards-data
8097   gnome-codec-install
8098   gnome-core
8099   gnome-desktop-environment
8100   gnome-disk-utility
8101   gnome-screenshot
8102   gnome-search-tool
8103   gnome-session-canberra
8104   gnome-system-log
8105   gnome-themes-extras
8106   gnome-themes-more
8107   gnome-user-share
8108   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
8109   gstreamer0.10-tools
8110   gtk2-engines
8111   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
8112   gtk2-engines-smooth
8113   hamster-applet
8114   libapache2-mod-dnssd
8115   libapr1
8116   libaprutil1
8117   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
8118   libaprutil1-ldap
8119   libart2.0-cil
8120   libboost-date-time1.42.0
8121   libboost-python1.42.0
8122   libboost-thread1.42.0
8123   libchamplain-0.4-0
8124   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
8125   libcheese-gtk18
8126   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
8127   libcryptui0
8128   libdiscid0
8129   libelf1
8130   libepc-1.0-2
8131   libepc-common
8132   libepc-ui-1.0-2
8133   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
8134   libfreerdp0
8135   libgconf2.0-cil
8136   libgdata-common
8137   libgdata7
8138   libgdu-gtk0
8139   libgee2
8140   libgeoclue0
8141   libgexiv2-0
8142   libgif4
8143   libglade2.0-cil
8144   libglib2.0-cil
8145   libgmime2.4-cil
8146   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
8147   libgnome2.24-cil
8148   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
8149   libgpod-common
8150   libgpod4
8151   libgtk2.0-cil
8152   libgtkglext1
8153   libgtksourceview2.0-common
8154   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
8155   libmono-addins0.2-cil
8156   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
8157   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
8158   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
8159   libmono-posix2.0-cil
8160   libmono-security2.0-cil
8161   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
8162   libmono-system2.0-cil
8163   libmtp8
8164   libmusicbrainz3-6
8165   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
8166   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
8167   libopal3.6.8
8168   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
8169   libpt2.6.7
8170   libpython2.6
8171   librpm1
8172   librpmio1
8173   libsdl1.2debian
8174   libsrtp0
8175   libssh-4
8176   libtelepathy-farsight0
8177   libtelepathy-glib0
8178   libtidy-0.99-0
8179   media-player-info
8180   mesa-utils
8181   mono-2.0-gac
8182   mono-gac
8183   mono-runtime
8184   nautilus-sendto
8185   nautilus-sendto-empathy
8186   p7zip-full
8187   pkg-config
8188   python-aptdaemon
8189   python-aptdaemon-gtk
8190   python-axiom
8191   python-beautifulsoup
8192   python-bugbuddy
8193   python-clientform
8194   python-coherence
8195   python-configobj
8196   python-crypto
8197   python-cupshelpers
8198   python-elementtree
8199   python-epsilon
8200   python-evolution
8201   python-feedparser
8202   python-gdata
8203   python-gdbm
8204   python-gst0.10
8205   python-gtkglext1
8206   python-gtksourceview2
8207   python-httplib2
8208   python-louie
8209   python-mako
8210   python-markupsafe
8211   python-mechanize
8212   python-nevow
8213   python-notify
8214   python-opengl
8215   python-openssl
8216   python-pam
8217   python-pkg-resources
8218   python-pyasn1
8219   python-pysqlite2
8220   python-rdflib
8221   python-serial
8222   python-tagpy
8223   python-twisted-bin
8224   python-twisted-conch
8225   python-twisted-core
8226   python-twisted-web
8227   python-utidylib
8228   python-webkit
8229   python-xdg
8230   python-zope.interface
8231   remmina
8232   remmina-plugin-data
8233   remmina-plugin-rdp
8234   remmina-plugin-vnc
8235   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
8236   rhythmbox-plugins
8237   rpm-common
8238   rpm2cpio
8239   seahorse-plugins
8240   shotwell
8241   software-center
8242   system-config-printer-udev
8243   telepathy-gabble
8244   telepathy-mission-control-5
8245   telepathy-salut
8246   tomboy
8247   totem
8248   totem-coherence
8249   totem-mozilla
8250   totem-plugins
8251   transmission-common
8252   xdg-user-dirs
8253   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
8254   xserver-xephyr
8255 </p></blockquote>
8256
8257 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8258
8259 <blockquote><p>
8260   cheese
8261   ekiga
8262   eog
8263   epiphany-extensions
8264   evolution-exchange
8265   fast-user-switch-applet
8266   file-roller
8267   gcalctool
8268   gconf-editor
8269   gdm
8270   gedit
8271   gedit-common
8272   gnome-games
8273   gnome-games-data
8274   gnome-nettool
8275   gnome-system-tools
8276   gnome-themes
8277   gnuchess
8278   gucharmap
8279   guile-1.8-libs
8280   libavahi-ui0
8281   libdmx1
8282   libgalago3
8283   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
8284   libgtksourceview2.0-0
8285   liblircclient0
8286   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
8287   libspeexdsp1
8288   libsvga1
8289   rhythmbox
8290   seahorse
8291   sound-juicer
8292   system-config-printer
8293   totem-common
8294   transmission-gtk
8295   vinagre
8296   vino
8297 </p></blockquote>
8298
8299 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8300
8301 <blockquote><p>
8302   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8303 </p></blockquote>
8304
8305 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8306
8307 <blockquote><p>
8308 [nothing]
8309 </p></blockquote>
8310
8311 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
8312
8313 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8314
8315 <blockquote><p>
8316   ksmserver
8317 </p></blockquote>
8318
8319 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8320
8321 <blockquote><p>
8322   kwin
8323   network-manager-kde
8324 </p></blockquote>
8325
8326 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8327
8328 <blockquote><p>
8329   arts
8330   dolphin
8331   freespacenotifier
8332   google-gadgets-gst
8333   google-gadgets-xul
8334   kappfinder
8335   kcalc
8336   kcharselect
8337   kde-core
8338   kde-plasma-desktop
8339   kde-standard
8340   kde-window-manager
8341   kdeartwork
8342   kdeartwork-emoticons
8343   kdeartwork-style
8344   kdeartwork-theme-icon
8345   kdebase
8346   kdebase-apps
8347   kdebase-workspace
8348   kdebase-workspace-bin
8349   kdebase-workspace-data
8350   kdeeject
8351   kdelibs
8352   kdeplasma-addons
8353   kdeutils
8354   kdewallpapers
8355   kdf
8356   kfloppy
8357   kgpg
8358   khelpcenter4
8359   kinfocenter
8360   konq-plugins-l10n
8361   konqueror-nsplugins
8362   kscreensaver
8363   kscreensaver-xsavers
8364   ktimer
8365   kwrite
8366   libgle3
8367   libkde4-ruby1.8
8368   libkonq5
8369   libkonq5-templates
8370   libnetpbm10
8371   libplasma-ruby
8372   libplasma-ruby1.8
8373   libqt4-ruby1.8
8374   marble-data
8375   marble-plugins
8376   netpbm
8377   nuvola-icon-theme
8378   plasma-dataengines-workspace
8379   plasma-desktop
8380   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
8381   plasma-runners-addons
8382   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
8383   plasma-scriptengine-python
8384   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
8385   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
8386   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
8387   plasma-scriptengines
8388   plasma-wallpapers-addons
8389   plasma-widget-folderview
8390   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
8391   ruby
8392   sweeper
8393   update-notifier-kde
8394   xscreensaver-data-extra
8395   xscreensaver-gl
8396   xscreensaver-gl-extra
8397   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
8398 </p></blockquote>
8399
8400 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8401
8402 <blockquote><p>
8403   ark
8404   google-gadgets-common
8405   google-gadgets-qt
8406   htdig
8407   kate
8408   kdebase-bin
8409   kdebase-data
8410   kdepasswd
8411   kfind
8412   klipper
8413   konq-plugins
8414   konqueror
8415   ksysguard
8416   ksysguardd
8417   libarchive1
8418   libcln6
8419   libeet1
8420   libeina-svn-06
8421   libggadget-1.0-0b
8422   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
8423   libgps19
8424   libkdecorations4
8425   libkephal4
8426   libkonq4
8427   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
8428   libkscreensaver5
8429   libksgrd4
8430   libksignalplotter4
8431   libkunitconversion4
8432   libkwineffects1a
8433   libmarblewidget4
8434   libntrack-qt4-1
8435   libntrack0
8436   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
8437   libplasmaclock4a
8438   libplasmagenericshell4
8439   libprocesscore4a
8440   libprocessui4a
8441   libqalculate5
8442   libqedje0a
8443   libqtruby4shared2
8444   libqzion0a
8445   libruby1.8
8446   libscim8c2a
8447   libsmokekdecore4-3
8448   libsmokekdeui4-3
8449   libsmokekfile3
8450   libsmokekhtml3
8451   libsmokekio3
8452   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
8453   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
8454   libsmokekparts3
8455   libsmokektexteditor3
8456   libsmokekutils3
8457   libsmokenepomuk3
8458   libsmokephonon3
8459   libsmokeplasma3
8460   libsmokeqtcore4-3
8461   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
8462   libsmokeqtgui4-3
8463   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
8464   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
8465   libsmokeqtscript4-3
8466   libsmokeqtsql4-3
8467   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
8468   libsmokeqttest4-3
8469   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
8470   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
8471   libsmokeqtxml4-3
8472   libsmokesolid3
8473   libsmokesoprano3
8474   libtaskmanager4a
8475   libtidy-0.99-0
8476   libweather-ion4a
8477   libxklavier16
8478   libxxf86misc1
8479   okteta
8480   oxygencursors
8481   plasma-dataengines-addons
8482   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
8483   plasma-widget-lancelot
8484   plasma-widgets-addons
8485   plasma-widgets-workspace
8486   polkit-kde-1
8487   ruby1.8
8488   systemsettings
8489   update-notifier-common
8490 </p></blockquote>
8491
8492 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
8493 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
8494 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
8495 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
8496
8497       </div>
8498       <div class="tags">
8499
8500
8501         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>.
8502
8503
8504       </div>
8505     </div>
8506     <div class="padding"></div>
8507
8508     <div class="entry">
8509       <div class="title">
8510         <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>
8511       </div>
8512       <div class="date">
8513         22nd November 2010
8514       </div>
8515       <div class="body">
8516         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
8517 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
8518 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
8519 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
8520 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
8521 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
8522 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
8523 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
8524 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
8525
8526 <p>I found
8527 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
8528 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
8529 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
8530 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
8531 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
8532 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
8533
8534 <pre>
8535 #!/bin/sh
8536
8537 # Based on
8538 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
8539
8540 set -e
8541 set -x
8542
8543 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
8544     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
8545     exit 1
8546 else
8547     host="$1"
8548 fi
8549
8550 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
8551     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
8552     exit 1
8553 fi
8554
8555 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
8556 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
8557 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
8558 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
8559
8560 img=$host.img
8561 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
8562 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
8563
8564 parted $img mklabel msdos
8565 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
8566 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
8567 parted $img set 1 boot on
8568
8569 modprobe dm-mod
8570 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
8571 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
8572
8573 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
8574 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
8575 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
8576
8577 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
8578 losetup -d /dev/loop0
8579 </pre>
8580
8581 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
8582 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
8583
8584 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
8585 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
8586 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
8587 seem to work just fine.</p>
8588
8589       </div>
8590       <div class="tags">
8591
8592
8593         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>.
8594
8595
8596       </div>
8597     </div>
8598     <div class="padding"></div>
8599
8600     <div class="entry">
8601       <div class="title">
8602         <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>
8603       </div>
8604       <div class="date">
8605         20th November 2010
8606       </div>
8607       <div class="body">
8608         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
8609 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
8610 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
8611 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
8612
8613 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
8614 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
8615 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
8616
8617 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
8618
8619 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8620
8621 <blockquote><p>
8622   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
8623   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
8624   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
8625   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
8626   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
8627   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
8628   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
8629   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
8630   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
8631   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
8632   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
8633   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
8634   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
8635   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
8636   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
8637   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
8638   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
8639   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
8640   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
8641   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
8642   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
8643   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
8644   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
8645   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
8646   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
8647   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
8648   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
8649   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
8650   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
8651   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
8652   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
8653   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
8654   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
8655   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
8656   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
8657   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
8658   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
8659   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
8660   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
8661   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
8662   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
8663   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
8664   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
8665   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
8666   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
8667   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
8668   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
8669   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
8670   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
8671   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
8672   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
8673   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
8674   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
8675   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
8676   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
8677   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
8678   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
8679   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
8680   zip
8681 </p></blockquote>
8682
8683 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
8684
8685 <blockquote><p>
8686   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
8687   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
8688   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
8689   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
8690   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
8691   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
8692   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
8693   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
8694   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
8695   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
8696   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
8697   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
8698   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
8699   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
8700   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
8701   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
8702   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
8703   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
8704   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
8705   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
8706   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
8707   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
8708   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
8709   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
8710   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
8711   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
8712   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
8713   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
8714   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
8715 </p></blockquote>
8716
8717 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8718
8719 <blockquote><p>
8720   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8721 </p></blockquote>
8722
8723 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8724
8725 <blockquote><p>
8726 [nothing]
8727 </p></blockquote>
8728
8729 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
8730
8731 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8732
8733 <blockquote><p>
8734   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
8735   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
8736   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
8737   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
8738   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
8739   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
8740   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
8741   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
8742   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
8743   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
8744   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
8745   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
8746   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
8747   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
8748   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
8749   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
8750   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
8751   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
8752   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
8753   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
8754   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
8755   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
8756   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
8757   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
8758   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
8759   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
8760   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
8761   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
8762   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
8763   ttf-sazanami-gothic
8764 </p></blockquote>
8765
8766 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8767
8768 <blockquote><p>
8769   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
8770   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
8771   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
8772   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
8773   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
8774   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
8775   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
8776   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
8777   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
8778   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
8779   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
8780   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
8781   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
8782   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
8783   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
8784   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
8785   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
8786   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
8787   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
8788   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
8789   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
8790   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
8791   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
8792   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
8793   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
8794   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
8795   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
8796   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
8797   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
8798   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
8799   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
8800   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
8801   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
8802 </p></blockquote>
8803
8804 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8805
8806 <blockquote><p>
8807   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
8808   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
8809   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
8810   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
8811   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
8812   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
8813   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
8814 </p></blockquote>
8815
8816 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8817
8818 <blockquote><p>
8819   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
8820 </p></blockquote>
8821
8822       </div>
8823       <div class="tags">
8824
8825
8826         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>.
8827
8828
8829       </div>
8830     </div>
8831     <div class="padding"></div>
8832
8833     <div class="entry">
8834       <div class="title">
8835         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
8836       </div>
8837       <div class="date">
8838         20th November 2010
8839       </div>
8840       <div class="body">
8841         <p>Answering
8842 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
8843 call from the Gnash project</a> for
8844 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
8845 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
8846 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
8847 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
8848 releases out more often.</p>
8849
8850 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
8851 I have considered setting up a <a
8852 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
8853 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
8854 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
8855 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
8856 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
8857 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
8858 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
8859 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
8860 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
8861 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
8862 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
8863 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
8864
8865       </div>
8866       <div class="tags">
8867
8868
8869         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>.
8870
8871
8872       </div>
8873     </div>
8874     <div class="padding"></div>
8875
8876     <div class="entry">
8877       <div class="title">
8878         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
8879       </div>
8880       <div class="date">
8881          9th November 2010
8882       </div>
8883       <div class="body">
8884         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
8885
8886 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
8887 3D linked in from
8888 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
8889 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
8890
8891       </div>
8892       <div class="tags">
8893
8894
8895         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>.
8896
8897
8898       </div>
8899     </div>
8900     <div class="padding"></div>
8901
8902     <div class="entry">
8903       <div class="title">
8904         <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>
8905       </div>
8906       <div class="date">
8907          7th November 2010
8908       </div>
8909       <div class="body">
8910         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
8911 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
8912 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
8913 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
8914 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
8915 working using this DVD.</p>
8916
8917 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
8918 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
8919 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
8920 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
8921 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
8922 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
8923 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
8924
8925 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
8926 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
8927 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
8928 Debian archive.</p>
8929
8930 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
8931 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
8932 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
8933 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
8934 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
8935 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
8936 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
8937 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
8938 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
8939 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
8940 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
8941 free X driver should work.</p>
8942
8943 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
8944 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
8945 DVD more useful again.</p>
8946
8947       </div>
8948       <div class="tags">
8949
8950
8951         Tags: <a href="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>.
8952
8953
8954       </div>
8955     </div>
8956     <div class="padding"></div>
8957
8958     <div class="entry">
8959       <div class="title">
8960         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
8961       </div>
8962       <div class="date">
8963         24th October 2010
8964       </div>
8965       <div class="body">
8966         <p>Some updates.</p>
8967
8968 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
8969 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
8970 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
8971 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
8972 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
8973 :)</p>
8974
8975 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
8976 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
8977 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
8978 It is called
8979 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
8980 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
8981 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
8982 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
8983 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
8984 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
8985
8986 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
8987 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
8988 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
8989 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
8990 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
8991 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
8992 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
8993 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
8994 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
8995 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
8996
8997       </div>
8998       <div class="tags">
8999
9000
9001         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>.
9002
9003
9004       </div>
9005     </div>
9006     <div class="padding"></div>
9007
9008     <div class="entry">
9009       <div class="title">
9010         <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>
9011       </div>
9012       <div class="date">
9013         19th October 2010
9014       </div>
9015       <div class="body">
9016         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
9017 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
9018 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
9019 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
9020 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
9021 AVM2 flash files.</p>
9022
9023 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
9024 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
9025 following text:</P>
9026
9027 <p><blockquote>
9028
9029   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
9030   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
9031
9032   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
9033
9034   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
9035
9036   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
9037   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
9038   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
9039   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
9040   days. The project web page is available from
9041   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
9042   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
9043   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
9044
9045   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
9046   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
9047   to get this to happen.</p>
9048
9049   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
9050   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
9051
9052 </blockquote></p>
9053
9054 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
9055 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
9056 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
9057 :)</p>
9058
9059       </div>
9060       <div class="tags">
9061
9062
9063         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>.
9064
9065
9066       </div>
9067     </div>
9068     <div class="padding"></div>
9069
9070     <div class="entry">
9071       <div class="title">
9072         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_version_of_a_Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot.html">First version of a Perl library to control the Spykee robot</a>
9073       </div>
9074       <div class="date">
9075          9th October 2010
9076       </div>
9077       <div class="body">
9078         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
9079 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
9080 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
9081 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
9082 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
9083 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
9084 robots.</p>
9085
9086 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
9087 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
9088 a few less important features too.</p>
9089
9090 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
9091 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
9092 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
9093 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
9094
9095 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
9096 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
9097 source or binary package:</p>
9098
9099 <p><ul>
9100 <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>
9101 <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>
9102 <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>
9103 </ul></p>
9104
9105 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
9106 please let me know.</p>
9107
9108       </div>
9109       <div class="tags">
9110
9111
9112         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>.
9113
9114
9115       </div>
9116     </div>
9117     <div class="padding"></div>
9118
9119     <div class="entry">
9120       <div class="title">
9121         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
9122       </div>
9123       <div class="date">
9124          3rd October 2010
9125       </div>
9126       <div class="body">
9127         <p><ul>
9128
9129 <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
9130 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
9131
9132 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
9133 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
9134 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
9135
9136 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
9137 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
9138 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
9139 simple setup.
9140
9141 </ul></p>
9142
9143       </div>
9144       <div class="tags">
9145
9146
9147         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>.
9148
9149
9150       </div>
9151     </div>
9152     <div class="padding"></div>
9153
9154     <div class="entry">
9155       <div class="title">
9156         <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>
9157       </div>
9158       <div class="date">
9159          9th September 2010
9160       </div>
9161       <div class="body">
9162         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
9163 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
9164 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
9165 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
9166 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
9167 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
9168 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
9169 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
9170 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
9171
9172 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
9173 written:</p>
9174
9175 <blockquote>
9176 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
9177 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
9178 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
9179 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
9180 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
9181
9182 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
9183 standard.</p>
9184 </blockquote>
9185
9186 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
9187 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
9188 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
9189 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
9190
9191 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
9192 read
9193 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
9194 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
9195 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
9196 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
9197 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
9198 the issue.  The solution is to support the
9199 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
9200 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
9201 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
9202
9203       </div>
9204       <div class="tags">
9205
9206
9207         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>.
9208
9209
9210       </div>
9211     </div>
9212     <div class="padding"></div>
9213
9214     <div class="entry">
9215       <div class="title">
9216         <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>
9217       </div>
9218       <div class="date">
9219          4th September 2010
9220       </div>
9221       <div class="body">
9222         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
9223 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
9224 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
9225 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
9226 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
9227 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
9228 installed.</p>
9229
9230 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
9231 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
9232 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
9233 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
9234 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
9235 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
9236 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
9237 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
9238 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
9239
9240 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
9241 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
9242 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
9243 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
9244 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
9245 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
9246 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
9247 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
9248 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
9249 pages they want to visit.</p>
9250
9251 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
9252 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
9253 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
9254 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
9255 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
9256 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
9257 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
9258 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
9259 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
9260 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
9261 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
9262
9263       </div>
9264       <div class="tags">
9265
9266
9267         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>.
9268
9269
9270       </div>
9271     </div>
9272     <div class="padding"></div>
9273
9274     <div class="entry">
9275       <div class="title">
9276         <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>
9277       </div>
9278       <div class="date">
9279          1st September 2010
9280       </div>
9281       <div class="body">
9282         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
9283 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
9284 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
9285 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
9286 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
9287 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
9288 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
9289 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
9290 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
9291 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
9292 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
9293 drive around.</p>
9294
9295 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
9296 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
9297
9298 <p><pre>
9299 use Spykee;
9300 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
9301 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
9302 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
9303 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
9304 $spykee->left();
9305 sleep 2;
9306 $spykee->right();
9307 sleep 2;
9308 $spykee->forward();
9309 sleep 2;
9310 $spykee->back();
9311 sleep 2;
9312 $spykee->stop();
9313 </pre></p>
9314
9315 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
9316 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
9317 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
9318 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
9319 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
9320 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
9321 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
9322 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
9323 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
9324 going. :).</p>
9325
9326 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
9327 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
9328 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
9329 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
9330
9331       </div>
9332       <div class="tags">
9333
9334
9335         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>.
9336
9337
9338       </div>
9339     </div>
9340     <div class="padding"></div>
9341
9342     <div class="entry">
9343       <div class="title">
9344         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
9345       </div>
9346       <div class="date">
9347         30th August 2010
9348       </div>
9349       <div class="body">
9350         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
9351 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
9352 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
9353 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
9354 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
9355 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
9356 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
9357
9358 <pre>
9359 % ln foo bar
9360 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
9361 %
9362 </pre>
9363
9364 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
9365 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
9366 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
9367 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
9368 nevertheless. :)</p>
9369
9370 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
9371 git from
9372 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
9373
9374       </div>
9375       <div class="tags">
9376
9377
9378         Tags: <a href="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>.
9379
9380
9381       </div>
9382     </div>
9383     <div class="padding"></div>
9384
9385     <div class="entry">
9386       <div class="title">
9387         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
9388       </div>
9389       <div class="date">
9390         26th August 2010
9391       </div>
9392       <div class="body">
9393         <p>My file system sematics program
9394 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
9395 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
9396 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
9397 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
9398 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
9399 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
9400 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
9401 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
9402 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
9403 script:</p>
9404
9405 <pre>
9406 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
9407   mode_t retval = 0;
9408   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
9409   if (-1 != fd) {
9410     unlink(name);
9411     struct stat statbuf;
9412     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
9413       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
9414     }
9415     close(fd);
9416   }
9417   return retval;
9418 }
9419
9420 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
9421 int test_umask(void) {
9422   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
9423
9424   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
9425   mode_t newmode;
9426   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
9427     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
9428            newmode);
9429   }
9430   umask(007);
9431   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
9432     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
9433            newmode);
9434   }
9435
9436   umask (orig_umask);
9437   return 0;
9438 }
9439
9440 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
9441   [...]
9442   test_umask();
9443   return 0;
9444 }
9445 </pre>
9446
9447 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
9448
9449 <pre>
9450 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
9451 info: testing symlink creation
9452 info: testing subdirectory creation
9453 info: testing fcntl locking
9454   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
9455   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
9456   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
9457   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
9458   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
9459   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
9460 info: testing umask effect on file creation
9461 </pre>
9462
9463 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
9464 result:</p>
9465
9466 <pre>
9467 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
9468 info: testing symlink creation
9469 info: testing subdirectory creation
9470 info: testing fcntl locking
9471   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
9472   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
9473   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
9474   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
9475   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
9476   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
9477 info: testing umask effect on file creation
9478   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
9479   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
9480 </pre>
9481
9482 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
9483 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
9484 directory.</p>
9485
9486 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
9487 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
9488
9489 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
9490 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
9491 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
9492
9493       </div>
9494       <div class="tags">
9495
9496
9497         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9498
9499
9500       </div>
9501     </div>
9502     <div class="padding"></div>
9503
9504     <div class="entry">
9505       <div class="title">
9506         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
9507       </div>
9508       <div class="date">
9509         15th August 2010
9510       </div>
9511       <div class="body">
9512         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
9513 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
9514 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
9515 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
9516 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
9517 long time.</p>
9518
9519       </div>
9520       <div class="tags">
9521
9522
9523         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>.
9524
9525
9526       </div>
9527     </div>
9528     <div class="padding"></div>
9529
9530     <div class="entry">
9531       <div class="title">
9532         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
9533       </div>
9534       <div class="date">
9535          9th August 2010
9536       </div>
9537       <div class="body">
9538         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
9539 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
9540 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
9541 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
9542 generated configuration.</p>
9543
9544 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
9545 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
9546 without any manual configuration.</p>
9547
9548 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
9549 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
9550 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
9551 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
9552 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
9553 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
9554 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
9555 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
9556 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
9557 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
9558 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
9559 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
9560 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
9561 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
9562 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
9563 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
9564 use.</p>
9565
9566 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
9567 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
9568 working properly out of the box:</p>
9569
9570 <ul>
9571 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
9572 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
9573 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
9574 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
9575 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
9576 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
9577 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
9578 </ul>
9579
9580 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
9581
9582 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
9583 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
9584 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
9585 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
9586 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
9587
9588 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
9589 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
9590 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
9591 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
9592 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
9593 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
9594 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
9595 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
9596
9597 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
9598 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
9599 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
9600 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
9601 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
9602 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
9603 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
9604 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
9605 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
9606 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
9607 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
9608 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
9609 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
9610 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
9611 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
9612 current DNS domain is used.</p>
9613
9614 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
9615 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
9616 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
9617 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
9618 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
9619 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
9620 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
9621 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
9622 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
9623 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
9624 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
9625 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
9626 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
9627
9628 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
9629 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
9630 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
9631 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
9632 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
9633 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
9634 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
9635 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
9636 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
9637 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
9638 do for now. :)</p>
9639
9640 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
9641 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
9642 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
9643 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
9644 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
9645 yet.</p>
9646
9647 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
9648 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9649
9650 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
9651 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
9652 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
9653 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
9654
9655       </div>
9656       <div class="tags">
9657
9658
9659         Tags: <a href="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>.
9660
9661
9662       </div>
9663     </div>
9664     <div class="padding"></div>
9665
9666     <div class="entry">
9667       <div class="title">
9668         <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>
9669       </div>
9670       <div class="date">
9671          8th August 2010
9672       </div>
9673       <div class="body">
9674         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
9675 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
9676 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
9677 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
9678 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
9679 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
9680 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
9681
9682 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
9683 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
9684 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
9685 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
9686 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
9687 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
9688 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
9689
9690 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
9691 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
9692 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
9693 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
9694 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
9695
9696 <pre>
9697 /*
9698  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
9699  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
9700  * directory.
9701  * License: GPL v2 or later
9702  *
9703  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
9704  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
9705 */
9706
9707 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
9708 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
9709 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
9710
9711 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
9712
9713 #include &lt;errno.h>
9714 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
9715 #include &lt;stdio.h>
9716 #include &lt;string.h>
9717 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
9718 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
9719 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
9720 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
9721 #include &lt;unistd.h>
9722
9723 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
9724 /*
9725  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
9726  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
9727  * below.
9728  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
9729  */
9730 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
9731 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
9732   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
9733 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
9734   char *zErrMsg;
9735   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
9736   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
9737   unlink(name);
9738   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
9739   if( rc ){
9740     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
9741     sqlite3_close(db);
9742     return -1;
9743   }
9744
9745   /* create tables */
9746   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
9747   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
9748     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
9749     sqlite3_close(db);
9750     return -1;
9751   }
9752   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
9753   sqlite3_close(db);
9754   return 0;
9755 }
9756 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
9757
9758 /*
9759  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
9760  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
9761  * done in the sqlite3 library.
9762  * See also
9763  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
9764  * POSIX specification
9765  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
9766  */
9767 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
9768   struct flock fl;
9769   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
9770   unlink(name);
9771   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
9772   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
9773
9774   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
9775   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
9776   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
9777   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
9778   fl.l_len    = 1;
9779   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
9780   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9781
9782   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
9783   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
9784   fl.l_len    = 510;
9785   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
9786   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9787
9788   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
9789   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
9790   fl.l_len    = 1;
9791   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
9792   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9793
9794   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
9795   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
9796   fl.l_len    = 1;
9797   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
9798   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9799
9800   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
9801   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
9802   fl.l_len    = 510;
9803   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9804
9805   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
9806   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
9807   fl.l_len    = 2;
9808   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
9809   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9810
9811   close(fd);
9812   return 0;
9813 }
9814
9815 /*
9816  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
9817  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
9818  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
9819  * slowing down file operations.
9820  */
9821 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
9822 #define LEVELS 5
9823   char *path = strdup("test");
9824   char *dirs[LEVELS];
9825   int level;
9826   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
9827   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
9828     char *newpath = NULL;
9829     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
9830       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
9831              path, strerror(errno));
9832       break;
9833     }
9834     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
9835     free(path);
9836     path = newpath;
9837   }
9838   return 0;
9839 }
9840
9841 /*
9842  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
9843  * KDE.
9844  */
9845 int test_symlinks(void) {
9846   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
9847   unlink("symlink");
9848   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
9849     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
9850   return 0;
9851 }
9852
9853 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
9854   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
9855   test_symlinks();
9856   test_subdirectory_creation();
9857 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
9858   test_sqlite_open();
9859 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
9860   test_gcompris_locking();
9861   return 0;
9862 }
9863 </pre>
9864
9865 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
9866 this:</p>
9867
9868 <pre>
9869 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
9870 info: testing symlink creation
9871 info: testing subdirectory creation
9872 info: sqlite worked
9873 info: testing fcntl locking
9874   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
9875   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
9876   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
9877   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
9878   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
9879   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
9880 </pre>
9881
9882 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
9883 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
9884 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
9885 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
9886 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
9887 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
9888 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
9889 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
9890
9891 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
9892 it. :)</p>
9893
9894 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
9895 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
9896 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
9897
9898       </div>
9899       <div class="tags">
9900
9901
9902         Tags: <a href="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>.
9903
9904
9905       </div>
9906     </div>
9907     <div class="padding"></div>
9908
9909     <div class="entry">
9910       <div class="title">
9911         <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>
9912       </div>
9913       <div class="date">
9914          7th August 2010
9915       </div>
9916       <div class="body">
9917         <p>A few days ago, I
9918 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
9919 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
9920 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
9921 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
9922 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
9923 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
9924 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
9925 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
9926 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
9927
9928 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
9929 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
9930 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
9931 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
9932 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
9933 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
9934 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
9935 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
9936 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
9937 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
9938 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
9939 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
9940 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
9941 gave it a IP address.</p>
9942
9943 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
9944 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
9945 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
9946 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
9947 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
9948 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
9949 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
9950 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
9951
9952 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
9953 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
9954 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
9955 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
9956 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
9957 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
9958
9959 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
9960 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
9961 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
9962 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
9963 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
9964 with UID and GID values.</p>
9965
9966 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
9967 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9968
9969       </div>
9970       <div class="tags">
9971
9972
9973         Tags: <a href="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>.
9974
9975
9976       </div>
9977     </div>
9978     <div class="padding"></div>
9979
9980     <div class="entry">
9981       <div class="title">
9982         <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>
9983       </div>
9984       <div class="date">
9985          3rd August 2010
9986       </div>
9987       <div class="body">
9988         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
9989 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
9990 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
9991 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
9992 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
9993 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
9994 servers.</p>
9995
9996 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
9997 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
9998 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
9999 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
10000 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
10001 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
10002 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
10003 .uio.no.</p>
10004
10005 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
10006 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
10007 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
10008 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
10009 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
10010 university servers.</p>
10011
10012 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
10013 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
10014 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
10015 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
10016 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
10017 uses.</p>
10018
10019       </div>
10020       <div class="tags">
10021
10022
10023         Tags: <a href="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>.
10024
10025
10026       </div>
10027     </div>
10028     <div class="padding"></div>
10029
10030     <div class="entry">
10031       <div class="title">
10032         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
10033       </div>
10034       <div class="date">
10035         27th July 2010
10036       </div>
10037       <div class="body">
10038         <p>I discovered this while doing
10039 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
10040 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
10041 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
10042 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
10043 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
10044
10045 <p>An example is from todays
10046 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
10047 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
10048 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
10049 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
10050 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
10051 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
10052 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
10053
10054 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
10055
10056 <blockquote><pre>
10057 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
10058  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
10059   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
10060 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
10061  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
10062 </pre></blockquote>
10063
10064 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
10065 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
10066 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
10067 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
10068 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
10069 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
10070 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
10071 of dependency loops.</p>
10072
10073 <p>Thanks to
10074 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
10075 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
10076 dependencies
10077 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
10078 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
10079
10080 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
10081 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
10082 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
10083 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
10084 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
10085 it.</p>
10086
10087       </div>
10088       <div class="tags">
10089
10090
10091         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>.
10092
10093
10094       </div>
10095     </div>
10096     <div class="padding"></div>
10097
10098     <div class="entry">
10099       <div class="title">
10100         <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>
10101       </div>
10102       <div class="date">
10103         27th July 2010
10104       </div>
10105       <div class="body">
10106         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
10107 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
10108 completed.</p>
10109
10110 <blockquote>
10111 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
10112 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
10113 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
10114 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
10115 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
10116 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
10117 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
10118 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
10119
10120 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
10121 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
10122 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
10123
10124 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
10125 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
10126 much.</p>
10127
10128 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
10129
10130 <ul>
10131 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
10132 <ul>
10133   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
10134          combination with some new artwork
10135   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
10136   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
10137   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
10138   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
10139   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
10140   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
10141   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
10142   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
10143   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
10144 </ul></li>
10145 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
10146     Enabled for:
10147 <ul>
10148   <li>PAM
10149   <li>LDAP
10150   <li>IMAP
10151   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
10152 </ul>
10153 </li>
10154 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
10155 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
10156     fetched from LDAP.</li>
10157 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
10158 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
10159 </ul>
10160 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
10161
10162 <ul>
10163 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
10164     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
10165     for testing.</li>
10166 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
10167     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
10168     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
10169 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
10170 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
10171 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
10172 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
10173     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
10174 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
10175     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
10176     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
10177 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
10178     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
10179     and help out with translations.</li>
10180 </ul>
10181
10182 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
10183
10184 <ul>
10185 <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>
10186 <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>
10187 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
10188 </ul>
10189 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
10190
10191 <ul>
10192 <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>
10193 <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>
10194 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
10195 </ul>
10196
10197 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
10198 get closer to the final release.</p>
10199
10200 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
10201
10202 <ul>
10203 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
10204 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
10205 </ul>
10206
10207 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
10208 <ul>
10209 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
10210 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
10211 </ul>
10212 <p>How to report bugs:
10213 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
10214
10215 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
10216 </blockquote>
10217
10218       </div>
10219       <div class="tags">
10220
10221
10222         Tags: <a href="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>.
10223
10224
10225       </div>
10226     </div>
10227     <div class="padding"></div>
10228
10229     <div class="entry">
10230       <div class="title">
10231         <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>
10232       </div>
10233       <div class="date">
10234         25th July 2010
10235       </div>
10236       <div class="body">
10237         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
10238 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
10239 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
10240 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
10241 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
10242
10243 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
10244 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
10245 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
10246 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
10247 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
10248 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
10249 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
10250
10251 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
10252 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
10253 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
10254 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
10255 up. :)</p>
10256
10257 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
10258 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
10259 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
10260
10261 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
10262 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
10263 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
10264 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
10265 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
10266 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
10267 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
10268 release another day.</p>
10269
10270 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
10271 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10272
10273       </div>
10274       <div class="tags">
10275
10276
10277         Tags: <a href="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>.
10278
10279
10280       </div>
10281     </div>
10282     <div class="padding"></div>
10283
10284     <div class="entry">
10285       <div class="title">
10286         <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>
10287       </div>
10288       <div class="date">
10289         18th July 2010
10290       </div>
10291       <div class="body">
10292         <p>Thanks to
10293 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
10294 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
10295 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
10296 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
10297 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
10298 only available from the development server, until more experience is
10299 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
10300
10301 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
10302 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
10303 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
10304 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
10305 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
10306 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
10307 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
10308
10309       </div>
10310       <div class="tags">
10311
10312
10313         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>.
10314
10315
10316       </div>
10317     </div>
10318     <div class="padding"></div>
10319
10320     <div class="entry">
10321       <div class="title">
10322         <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>
10323       </div>
10324       <div class="date">
10325         17th July 2010
10326       </div>
10327       <div class="body">
10328         <p>This is a
10329 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
10330 on my
10331 <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
10332 work</a> on
10333 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
10334 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
10335
10336 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
10337 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
10338 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
10339 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
10340
10341 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
10342 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
10343 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
10344
10345 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
10346
10347 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
10348 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
10349 the web.
10350
10351 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
10352 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
10353 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
10354 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
10355 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
10356 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
10357
10358 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
10359 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
10360 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
10361 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
10362 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
10363 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
10364 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
10365 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
10366 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
10367 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
10368 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
10369 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
10370 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
10371 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
10372 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
10373 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
10374
10375 <blockquote><pre>
10376 ldapsearch -h ldap \
10377   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
10378   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
10379   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
10380   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
10381   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
10382   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
10383
10384 ldapsearch -h ldap \
10385   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
10386   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
10387   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
10388   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
10389   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
10390 </pre></blockquote>
10391
10392 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
10393 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
10394 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
10395 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10396 also exist.</p>
10397
10398 <blockquote><pre>
10399 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10400 objectclass: top
10401 objectclass: dnsdomain
10402 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10403 dc: tjener
10404 arecord: 10.0.2.2
10405 associateddomain: tjener.intern
10406
10407 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10408 objectclass: top
10409 objectclass: dnsdomain2
10410 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10411 dc: 2
10412 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
10413 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
10414 </pre></blockquote>
10415
10416 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
10417 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
10418 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
10419 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
10420 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
10421 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
10422 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
10423 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
10424 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
10425 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
10426 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
10427 instead.</p>
10428
10429 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
10430 like this:</p>
10431
10432 <blockquote><pre>
10433 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10434   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
10435   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
10436   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
10437   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
10438   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
10439
10440 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10441   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
10442 </pre></blockquote>
10443
10444 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
10445 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
10446 reverse lookups.</p>
10447
10448 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
10449 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
10450 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
10451 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
10452
10453 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
10454 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
10455 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
10456
10457 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
10458 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
10459 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
10460 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
10461 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
10462
10463 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
10464 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
10465 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
10466 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
10467 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
10468
10469 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
10470 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
10471 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
10472 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
10473 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
10474 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
10475
10476 <blockquote><pre>
10477 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
10478     SUP top
10479     AUXILIARY
10480     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
10481           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
10482           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
10483           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
10484           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
10485     ))
10486 </pre></blockquote>
10487
10488 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
10489 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
10490 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
10491 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
10492 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
10493 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
10494
10495 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
10496
10497 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
10498 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
10499 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
10500 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
10501 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
10502
10503 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
10504 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
10505 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
10506 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
10507
10508 <blockquote><pre>
10509 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
10510 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
10511 </pre></blockquote>
10512
10513 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
10514 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
10515 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
10516 search result is this entry:</p>
10517
10518 <blockquote><pre>
10519 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10520 cn: dhcp
10521 objectClass: top
10522 objectClass: dhcpServer
10523 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10524 </pre></blockquote>
10525
10526 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
10527 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
10528 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
10529 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
10530 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
10531 The search result is this entry:</p>
10532
10533 <blockquote><pre>
10534 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10535 cn: DHCP Config
10536 objectClass: top
10537 objectClass: dhcpService
10538 objectClass: dhcpOptions
10539 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10540 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
10541 dhcpStatements: authoritative
10542 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
10543 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
10544 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
10545 </pre></blockquote>
10546
10547 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
10548 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
10549 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
10550 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
10551 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
10552 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
10553 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
10554 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
10555 related computer objects.</p>
10556
10557 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
10558 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
10559 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
10560 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
10561 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
10562 like:</p>
10563
10564 <blockquote><pre>
10565 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10566 cn: hostname
10567 objectClass: top
10568 objectClass: dhcpHost
10569 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
10570 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
10571 </pre></blockquote>
10572
10573 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
10574 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
10575 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
10576 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
10577 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
10578 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
10579 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
10580 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
10581 structural object class.
10582
10583 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
10584
10585 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
10586 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
10587 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
10588 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
10589 in the configuration.</p>
10590
10591 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
10592 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
10593 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
10594 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
10595 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
10596 structure.</p>
10597
10598 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
10599 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
10600
10601 <blockquote><pre>
10602 ou=services
10603   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
10604     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
10605     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10606       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10607         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10608     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10609       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10610         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10611     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
10612       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
10613 </pre></blockquote>
10614
10615 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
10616 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
10617 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
10618 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
10619
10620 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
10621 like this:</p>
10622
10623 <blockquote><pre>
10624 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10625 dc: hostname
10626 objectClass: top
10627 objectClass: dhcpHost
10628 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10629 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
10630 associateddomain: hostname.intern
10631 arecord: 10.11.12.13
10632 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
10633 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
10634 </pre></blockquote>
10635
10636 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
10637 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
10638 auxiliary object class.</p>
10639
10640       </div>
10641       <div class="tags">
10642
10643
10644         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>.
10645
10646
10647       </div>
10648     </div>
10649     <div class="padding"></div>
10650
10651     <div class="entry">
10652       <div class="title">
10653         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
10654       </div>
10655       <div class="date">
10656         14th July 2010
10657       </div>
10658       <div class="body">
10659         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
10660 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
10661 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
10662 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
10663 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
10664
10665 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
10666 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
10667
10668 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
10669 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
10670 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
10671 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
10672 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
10673 to a slave DNS server.</p>
10674
10675 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
10676 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
10677 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
10678 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
10679 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
10680 seem to work.</p>
10681
10682 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
10683 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
10684 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
10685 this:</p>
10686
10687 <blockquote><pre>
10688   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10689   cn: hostname
10690   objectClass: dhcphost
10691   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10692   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
10693   associateddomain: hostname.intern
10694   arecord: 10.11.12.13
10695   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
10696   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
10697   ldapconfigsound: Y
10698 </pre></blockquote>
10699
10700 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
10701 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
10702 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
10703 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
10704
10705 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
10706 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
10707 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
10708 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
10709 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
10710 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
10711 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
10712 might be a good place to put it.</p>
10713
10714 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10715 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10716
10717       </div>
10718       <div class="tags">
10719
10720
10721         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>.
10722
10723
10724       </div>
10725     </div>
10726     <div class="padding"></div>
10727
10728     <div class="entry">
10729       <div class="title">
10730         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
10731       </div>
10732       <div class="date">
10733         11th July 2010
10734       </div>
10735       <div class="body">
10736         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
10737 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
10738 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
10739 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
10740
10741 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
10742 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
10743 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
10744 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
10745 LTSP clients.</p>
10746
10747 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
10748 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
10749 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
10750
10751 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
10752 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
10753 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
10754
10755 <blockquote><pre>
10756 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
10757 #
10758 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
10759 #
10760 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
10761 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
10762 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
10763 #
10764 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
10765 # existence of attribute names.
10766 #
10767 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
10768 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
10769 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
10770 #
10771 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
10772 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
10773 #
10774 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
10775 #     SUP top
10776 #     AUXILIARY
10777 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
10778
10779 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
10780 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
10781     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
10782     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
10783         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
10784         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
10785             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
10786             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
10787             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
10788             # bass value on to clients
10789             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
10790         done
10791     done
10792 fi
10793 </pre></blockquote>
10794
10795 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
10796 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
10797 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
10798 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
10799 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
10800
10801 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10802 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10803
10804 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
10805 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
10806 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
10807 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
10808 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
10809 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
10810
10811       </div>
10812       <div class="tags">
10813
10814
10815         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>.
10816
10817
10818       </div>
10819     </div>
10820     <div class="padding"></div>
10821
10822     <div class="entry">
10823       <div class="title">
10824         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
10825       </div>
10826       <div class="date">
10827          9th July 2010
10828       </div>
10829       <div class="body">
10830         <p>Since
10831 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
10832 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
10833 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
10834 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
10835 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
10836 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
10837 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
10838 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
10839 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
10840 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
10841 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
10842 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
10843 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
10844
10845       </div>
10846       <div class="tags">
10847
10848
10849         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>.
10850
10851
10852       </div>
10853     </div>
10854     <div class="padding"></div>
10855
10856     <div class="entry">
10857       <div class="title">
10858         <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>
10859       </div>
10860       <div class="date">
10861          3rd July 2010
10862       </div>
10863       <div class="body">
10864         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
10865 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
10866 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
10867 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
10868 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
10869 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
10870 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
10871 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
10872
10873 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
10874 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
10875 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
10876 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
10877 publish the difference.</p>
10878
10879 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
10880
10881 <blockquote><p>
10882   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
10883   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
10884   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
10885   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
10886   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
10887   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
10888   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
10889   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
10890 </p></blockquote>
10891
10892 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
10893
10894 <blockquote><p>
10895   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
10896   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
10897   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
10898   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
10899   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
10900   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
10901   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
10902   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
10903   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
10904   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
10905   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
10906   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
10907   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
10908   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
10909   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
10910   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
10911   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
10912   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
10913   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
10914   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
10915 </p></blockquote>
10916
10917 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10918
10919 <blockquote><p>
10920   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
10921   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
10922   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10923   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10924   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
10925   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
10926   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
10927   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10928   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10929   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10930   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10931   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
10932   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
10933   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
10934   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
10935   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
10936   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
10937   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
10938   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
10939   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
10940   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
10941 </p></blockquote>
10942
10943 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
10944
10945 <blockquote><p>
10946   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
10947   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
10948   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
10949 </p></blockquote>
10950
10951 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
10952 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
10953 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
10954 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
10955 the difference somewhat.
10956
10957       </div>
10958       <div class="tags">
10959
10960
10961         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>.
10962
10963
10964       </div>
10965     </div>
10966     <div class="padding"></div>
10967
10968     <div class="entry">
10969       <div class="title">
10970         <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>
10971       </div>
10972       <div class="date">
10973          1st July 2010
10974       </div>
10975       <div class="body">
10976         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
10977 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
10978 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
10979 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
10980 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
10981 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
10982 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
10983 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
10984 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
10985
10986 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
10987
10988 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
10989 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
10990 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
10991 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
10992 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
10993 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
10994 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
10995 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
10996 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
10997 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
10998 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
10999 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
11000 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
11001 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
11002 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
11003
11004 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
11005
11006 <blockquote><pre>
11007 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
11008 </pre></blockquote>
11009
11010 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
11011 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
11012 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
11013 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
11014 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
11015 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
11016 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
11017 on how to get this working.</p>
11018
11019 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
11020 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
11021 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
11022 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
11023 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
11024 instructions I found in the
11025 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
11026 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
11027
11028 <blockquote><pre>
11029         debug-level             0
11030         reload-count            unlimited
11031         paranoia                no
11032
11033         enable-cache            passwd          yes
11034         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
11035         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
11036         suggested-size          passwd          211
11037         check-files             passwd          yes
11038         persistent              passwd          yes
11039         shared                  passwd          yes
11040         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
11041         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
11042
11043         enable-cache            group           yes
11044         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
11045         negative-time-to-live   group           20
11046         suggested-size          group           211
11047         check-files             group           yes
11048         persistent              group           yes
11049         shared                  group           yes
11050         max-db-size             group           33554432
11051         auto-propagate          group           yes
11052
11053         enable-cache            hosts           no
11054         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
11055         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
11056         suggested-size          hosts           211
11057         check-files             hosts           yes
11058         persistent              hosts           yes
11059         shared                  hosts           yes
11060         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
11061
11062         enable-cache            services        yes
11063         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
11064         negative-time-to-live   services        20
11065         suggested-size          services        211
11066         check-files             services        yes
11067         persistent              services        yes
11068         shared                  services        yes
11069         max-db-size             services        33554432
11070 </pre></blockquote>
11071
11072 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
11073 automatically like the one provided in
11074 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
11075 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
11076 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
11077 look like this:</p>
11078
11079 <blockquote><pre>
11080 passwd:         files ldap
11081 group:          files ldap
11082 shadow:         files ldap
11083 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
11084 networks:       files
11085 protocols:      files
11086 services:       files
11087 ethers:         files
11088 rpc:            files
11089 netgroup:       files ldap
11090 </pre></blockquote>
11091
11092 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
11093 shadow and netgroup.</p>
11094
11095 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
11096 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
11097 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
11098 attributes cached.
11099
11100 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
11101   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
11102
11103 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
11104 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
11105 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
11106 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
11107 discovered sssd.</p>
11108
11109 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
11110
11111 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
11112 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
11113 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
11114 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
11115 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
11116 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
11117 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
11118 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
11119 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
11120 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
11121 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
11122 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
11123 version 1.2 is now in testing.
11124
11125 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
11126 roaming setup I want</p>
11127
11128 <blockquote><pre>
11129 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
11130 </pre></blockquote>
11131
11132 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
11133 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
11134
11135 <blockquote><pre>
11136 [sssd]
11137 config_file_version = 2
11138 reconnection_retries = 3
11139 sbus_timeout = 30
11140 services = nss, pam
11141 domains = INTERN
11142
11143 [nss]
11144 filter_groups = root
11145 filter_users = root
11146 reconnection_retries = 3
11147
11148 [pam]
11149 reconnection_retries = 3
11150
11151 [domain/INTERN]
11152 enumerate = false
11153 cache_credentials = true
11154
11155 id_provider = ldap
11156 auth_provider = ldap
11157 chpass_provider = ldap
11158
11159 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
11160 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11161 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
11162 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
11163 </pre></blockquote>
11164
11165 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
11166 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
11167
11168 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
11169 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
11170 modify it manually.</p>
11171
11172 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11173 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11174
11175       </div>
11176       <div class="tags">
11177
11178
11179         Tags: <a href="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>.
11180
11181
11182       </div>
11183     </div>
11184     <div class="padding"></div>
11185
11186     <div class="entry">
11187       <div class="title">
11188         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
11189       </div>
11190       <div class="date">
11191         28th June 2010
11192       </div>
11193       <div class="body">
11194         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
11195 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
11196 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
11197 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
11198 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
11199 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
11200 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
11201 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
11202 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
11203 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
11204
11205 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
11206 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
11207 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
11208 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
11209 released.</p>
11210
11211 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
11212 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
11213 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
11214 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
11215
11216 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
11217 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11218
11219 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
11220 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
11221 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
11222 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
11223 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
11224
11225       </div>
11226       <div class="tags">
11227
11228
11229         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>.
11230
11231
11232       </div>
11233     </div>
11234     <div class="padding"></div>
11235
11236     <div class="entry">
11237       <div class="title">
11238         <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>
11239       </div>
11240       <div class="date">
11241         24th June 2010
11242       </div>
11243       <div class="body">
11244         <p>A while back, I
11245 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
11246 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
11247 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
11248 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
11249
11250 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
11251 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
11252 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
11253 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
11254
11255 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
11256 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
11257 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
11258 Debian Edu.</p>
11259
11260 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
11261 the
11262 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
11263 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
11264 available today from IETF.</p>
11265
11266 <pre>
11267 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
11268 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
11269 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
11270  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
11271         NAME 'dhcpHost'
11272         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
11273 -       SUP top
11274 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
11275         MUST cn
11276         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
11277         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
11278 </pre>
11279
11280 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
11281 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
11282 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
11283
11284 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11285 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11286
11287       </div>
11288       <div class="tags">
11289
11290
11291         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>.
11292
11293
11294       </div>
11295     </div>
11296     <div class="padding"></div>
11297
11298     <div class="entry">
11299       <div class="title">
11300         <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>
11301       </div>
11302       <div class="date">
11303         16th June 2010
11304       </div>
11305       <div class="body">
11306         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
11307 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
11308 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
11309 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
11310 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
11311 this:
11312
11313 <blockquote><pre>
11314 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11315 tasksel --new-install
11316 </pre></blockquote>
11317
11318 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
11319 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
11320 any output what so ever.
11321
11322 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
11323 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
11324 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
11325 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
11326 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
11327 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
11328 code like this:
11329
11330 <blockquote><pre>
11331 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11332 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
11333 $cmd
11334 </pre></blockquote>
11335
11336 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
11337 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
11338 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
11339 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
11340 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
11341 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
11342 installation.</p>
11343
11344 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
11345 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
11346 like this.</p>
11347
11348       </div>
11349       <div class="tags">
11350
11351
11352         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>.
11353
11354
11355       </div>
11356     </div>
11357     <div class="padding"></div>
11358
11359     <div class="entry">
11360       <div class="title">
11361         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
11362       </div>
11363       <div class="date">
11364         13th June 2010
11365       </div>
11366       <div class="body">
11367         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
11368 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
11369 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
11370 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
11371 pages.</p>
11372
11373 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
11374 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
11375 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
11376 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
11377 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
11378 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
11379 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
11380 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
11381 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
11382 see how the project is doing.</p>
11383
11384 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
11385 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
11386 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
11387 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
11388 Windows.  This is great.</p>
11389
11390       </div>
11391       <div class="tags">
11392
11393
11394         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>.
11395
11396
11397       </div>
11398     </div>
11399     <div class="padding"></div>
11400
11401     <div class="entry">
11402       <div class="title">
11403         <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>
11404       </div>
11405       <div class="date">
11406         13th June 2010
11407       </div>
11408       <div class="body">
11409         <p>My
11410 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
11411 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
11412 finally made the upgrade logs available from
11413 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
11414 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
11415 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
11416 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
11417
11418 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
11419 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
11420 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
11421 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
11422 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
11423 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
11424 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
11425 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
11426
11427 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
11428 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
11429 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
11430 too surprising.</p>
11431
11432 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
11433 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
11434 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
11435 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
11436 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
11437 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
11438 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
11439 continue.</p>
11440
11441 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
11442 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
11443   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
11444   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
11445   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
11446   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
11447   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
11448   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11449   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11450   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11451   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11452   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11453   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11454   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11455   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11456   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11457   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11458   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11459   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11460   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11461   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11462   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11463   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11464   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11465   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11466   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11467   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11468   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11469   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
11470   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
11471
11472 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
11473
11474 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
11475   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
11476   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
11477   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
11478   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11479   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
11480   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
11481   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
11482   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
11483   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
11484   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
11485   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
11486   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
11487   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
11488   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
11489   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
11490   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
11491   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
11492   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
11493   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
11494   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
11495   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
11496   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
11497   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
11498   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
11499   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
11500   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
11501   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
11502   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
11503   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11504   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11505   zip</p>
11506
11507 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
11508
11509 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
11510   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
11511   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
11512   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
11513   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
11514   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
11515   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11516   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11517   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11518   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11519   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11520   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11521   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11522   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11523   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11524   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11525   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11526   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11527   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11528   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11529   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11530   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11531   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11532   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11533   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11534   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11535   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11536   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
11537
11538 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
11539 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
11540   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
11541   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
11542   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
11543   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
11544   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
11545   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
11546   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
11547   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
11548   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
11549   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
11550   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
11551   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
11552   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
11553   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
11554   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
11555   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
11556   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
11557   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11558   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
11559   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
11560   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
11561   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
11562   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
11563   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
11564   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
11565   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
11566   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
11567   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
11568   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
11569   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
11570   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
11571   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
11572   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
11573   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11574   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11575   xulrunner-1.9</p>
11576
11577
11578       </div>
11579       <div class="tags">
11580
11581
11582         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>.
11583
11584
11585       </div>
11586     </div>
11587     <div class="padding"></div>
11588
11589     <div class="entry">
11590       <div class="title">
11591         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
11592       </div>
11593       <div class="date">
11594         11th June 2010
11595       </div>
11596       <div class="body">
11597         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
11598 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
11599 have been discovered and reported in the process
11600 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
11601 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
11602 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
11603 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
11604 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
11605
11606 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
11607 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
11608 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
11609 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
11610 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
11611 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
11612
11613 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
11614 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
11615 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11616 is created.  The bug report
11617 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
11618 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
11619 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
11620 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
11621 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
11622 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
11623 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
11624 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
11625 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
11626 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
11627 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
11628 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
11629 Debian Squeeze.</p>
11630
11631 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
11632 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
11633 trick:</p>
11634
11635 <blockquote><pre>
11636 #!/bin/sh
11637 set -ex
11638
11639 if [ "$1" ] ; then
11640     desktop=$1
11641 else
11642     desktop=gnome
11643 fi
11644
11645 from=lenny
11646 to=squeeze
11647
11648 exec &lt; /dev/null
11649 unset LANG
11650 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
11651 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
11652 fuser -mv .
11653 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
11654 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11655 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
11656 #!/bin/sh
11657 exit 101
11658 EOF
11659 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
11660 exit_cleanup() {
11661     umount $tmpdir/proc
11662 }
11663 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
11664 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
11665 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
11666
11667 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
11668
11669 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
11670 # to return the correct answers.
11671 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
11672     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
11673
11674 # Include the desktop and laptop task
11675 for test in desktop laptop ; do
11676     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
11677 #!/bin/sh
11678 exit 2
11679 EOF
11680     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
11681 done
11682
11683 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11684 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
11685 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
11686 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
11687
11688 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
11689 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11690 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11691 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
11692 fuser -mv
11693 </pre></blockquote>
11694
11695 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
11696 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
11697 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
11698 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
11699 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
11700 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
11701
11702 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
11703 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
11704 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
11705 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
11706 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
11707 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
11708 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
11709
11710 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
11711 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
11712 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
11713 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
11714 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
11715 packages.</p>
11716
11717       </div>
11718       <div class="tags">
11719
11720
11721         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>.
11722
11723
11724       </div>
11725     </div>
11726     <div class="padding"></div>
11727
11728     <div class="entry">
11729       <div class="title">
11730         <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>
11731       </div>
11732       <div class="date">
11733          6th June 2010
11734       </div>
11735       <div class="body">
11736         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
11737 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
11738 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
11739 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
11740 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
11741 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
11742 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
11743
11744 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
11745 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
11746 COLUMNS):</p>
11747
11748 <blockquote><pre>
11749 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
11750 previous=N
11751 PREVLEVEL=
11752 RUNLEVEL=
11753 runlevel=S
11754 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
11755 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
11756 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
11757 </pre></blockquote>
11758
11759 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
11760 script.</p>
11761
11762 <blockquote><pre>
11763 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
11764 previous=N
11765 PREVLEVEL=N
11766 RUNLEVEL=S
11767 runlevel=S
11768 </pre></blockquote>
11769
11770 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
11771 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
11772 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
11773
11774 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
11775 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
11776 choice.</p>
11777
11778       </div>
11779       <div class="tags">
11780
11781
11782         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>.
11783
11784
11785       </div>
11786     </div>
11787     <div class="padding"></div>
11788
11789     <div class="entry">
11790       <div class="title">
11791         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
11792       </div>
11793       <div class="date">
11794          6th June 2010
11795       </div>
11796       <div class="body">
11797         <p>Via the
11798 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
11799 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
11800 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
11801 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
11802 following the standards wars of today.</p>
11803
11804       </div>
11805       <div class="tags">
11806
11807
11808         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>.
11809
11810
11811       </div>
11812     </div>
11813     <div class="padding"></div>
11814
11815     <div class="entry">
11816       <div class="title">
11817         <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>
11818       </div>
11819       <div class="date">
11820          3rd June 2010
11821       </div>
11822       <div class="body">
11823         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
11824 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
11825 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
11826 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
11827 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
11828
11829 <blockquote><pre>
11830 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
11831   vendor                    count
11832   Dell Computer Corporation     1
11833     PowerEdge 1750              1
11834   IBM                           1
11835     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
11836   Intel                         2
11837   [no-dmi-info]                 3
11838 maintainer:~#
11839 </pre></blockquote>
11840
11841 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
11842 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
11843 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
11844 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
11845 option to list the individual machines.</p>
11846
11847 <p>A larger list is
11848 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
11849 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
11850 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
11851 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
11852 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
11853 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
11854 collector.</p>
11855
11856       </div>
11857       <div class="tags">
11858
11859
11860         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>.
11861
11862
11863       </div>
11864     </div>
11865     <div class="padding"></div>
11866
11867     <div class="entry">
11868       <div class="title">
11869         <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>
11870       </div>
11871       <div class="date">
11872          1st June 2010
11873       </div>
11874       <div class="body">
11875         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
11876 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
11877 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
11878 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
11879 wait.</p>
11880
11881 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
11882 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
11883 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
11884 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
11885 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
11886 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
11887
11888 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
11889 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
11890 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
11891 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
11892 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
11893 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
11894 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
11895 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
11896
11897 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
11898
11899       </div>
11900       <div class="tags">
11901
11902
11903         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>.
11904
11905
11906       </div>
11907     </div>
11908     <div class="padding"></div>
11909
11910     <div class="entry">
11911       <div class="title">
11912         <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>
11913       </div>
11914       <div class="date">
11915         27th May 2010
11916       </div>
11917       <div class="body">
11918         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
11919 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
11920 issues are known and should be solved:
11921
11922 <p><ul>
11923
11924 <li>The wicd package seen to
11925 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
11926 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
11927 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
11928 seem to be on the case.</li>
11929
11930 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
11931 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
11932 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
11933 maintainer is on the case.</li>
11934
11935 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
11936 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
11937 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
11938 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
11939 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
11940 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
11941 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
11942 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
11943
11944 </ul></p>
11945
11946 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
11947 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
11948 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
11949 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
11950
11951 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11952 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11953 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11954 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
11955
11956 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
11957
11958       </div>
11959       <div class="tags">
11960
11961
11962         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>.
11963
11964
11965       </div>
11966     </div>
11967     <div class="padding"></div>
11968
11969     <div class="entry">
11970       <div class="title">
11971         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
11972       </div>
11973       <div class="date">
11974         22nd May 2010
11975       </div>
11976       <div class="body">
11977         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
11978 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
11979 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
11980 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
11981
11982 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
11983 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
11984 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
11985 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
11986 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
11987 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
11988 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
11989 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
11990 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
11991 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
11992 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
11993 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
11994 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
11995 going to work.</p>
11996
11997 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
11998 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
11999 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
12000 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
12001 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
12002 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
12003 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
12004 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
12005 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
12006 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
12007 Edu.</p>
12008
12009 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
12010 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
12011 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
12012 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
12013 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
12014 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
12015
12016 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
12017 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
12018
12019       </div>
12020       <div class="tags">
12021
12022
12023         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>.
12024
12025
12026       </div>
12027     </div>
12028     <div class="padding"></div>
12029
12030     <div class="entry">
12031       <div class="title">
12032         <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>
12033       </div>
12034       <div class="date">
12035         19th May 2010
12036       </div>
12037       <div class="body">
12038         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
12039 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
12040 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
12041 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
12042 into unstable.  The
12043 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
12044 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
12045 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
12046 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
12047 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
12048 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
12049 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
12050
12051 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
12052 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
12053 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
12054 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
12055 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
12056 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
12057 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
12058 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
12059
12060 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
12061 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
12062 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
12063 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
12064 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
12065 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
12066 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
12067
12068 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
12069 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
12070 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
12071 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
12072 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
12073 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
12074 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
12075 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
12076 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
12077 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
12078 on the home directory servers.</p>
12079
12080 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
12081 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
12082 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
12083 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
12084 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
12085 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
12086
12087 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
12088 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
12089
12090       </div>
12091       <div class="tags">
12092
12093
12094         Tags: <a href="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>.
12095
12096
12097       </div>
12098     </div>
12099     <div class="padding"></div>
12100
12101     <div class="entry">
12102       <div class="title">
12103         <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>
12104       </div>
12105       <div class="date">
12106         14th May 2010
12107       </div>
12108       <div class="body">
12109         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
12110 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
12111 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
12112 expected, if I am to believe the
12113 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
12114 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
12115 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
12116 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
12117 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
12118 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
12119 version.</p>
12120
12121 More information about
12122 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
12123 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
12124 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
12125 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
12126
12127 <blockquote><pre>
12128 CONCURRENCY=none
12129 </pre></blockquote>
12130
12131 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
12132 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
12133 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
12134 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
12135
12136       </div>
12137       <div class="tags">
12138
12139
12140         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>.
12141
12142
12143       </div>
12144     </div>
12145     <div class="padding"></div>
12146
12147     <div class="entry">
12148       <div class="title">
12149         <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>
12150       </div>
12151       <div class="date">
12152         14th May 2010
12153       </div>
12154       <div class="body">
12155         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
12156 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
12157 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
12158 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
12159 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
12160 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
12161 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
12162 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
12163
12164 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
12165 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
12166 this on the collector host:</p>
12167
12168 <blockquote><pre>
12169 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
12170 </pre></blockquote>
12171
12172 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
12173 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
12174
12175 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
12176 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
12177 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
12178 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
12179 written yet.</p>
12180
12181       </div>
12182       <div class="tags">
12183
12184
12185         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>.
12186
12187
12188       </div>
12189     </div>
12190     <div class="padding"></div>
12191
12192     <div class="entry">
12193       <div class="title">
12194         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
12195       </div>
12196       <div class="date">
12197         13th May 2010
12198       </div>
12199       <div class="body">
12200         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
12201 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
12202 has been
12203 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
12204
12205 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
12206 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
12207 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
12208 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
12209 based boot system.  Tollef is
12210 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
12211 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
12212 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
12213 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
12214 at the moment do not.</p>
12215
12216 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
12217 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
12218 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
12219 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
12220 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
12221 way forward.</p>
12222
12223 <p>In the mean time, based on the
12224 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
12225 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
12226 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
12227 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
12228 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
12229 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
12230 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
12231 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
12232
12233       </div>
12234       <div class="tags">
12235
12236
12237         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>.
12238
12239
12240       </div>
12241     </div>
12242     <div class="padding"></div>
12243
12244     <div class="entry">
12245       <div class="title">
12246         <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>
12247       </div>
12248       <div class="date">
12249          6th May 2010
12250       </div>
12251       <div class="body">
12252         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
12253 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
12254 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
12255 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
12256 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
12257 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
12258 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
12259
12260 <blockquote><pre>
12261 CONCURRENCY=makefile
12262 </pre></blockquote>
12263
12264 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
12265 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
12266 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
12267 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
12268 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
12269 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
12270 make this happen.</p>
12271
12272 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
12273 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
12274 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
12275 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
12276 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
12277
12278 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
12279 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
12280 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
12281 fix the remaining issues.</p>
12282
12283 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
12284 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
12285 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
12286 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
12287
12288       </div>
12289       <div class="tags">
12290
12291
12292         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>.
12293
12294
12295       </div>
12296     </div>
12297     <div class="padding"></div>
12298
12299     <div class="entry">
12300       <div class="title">
12301         <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>
12302       </div>
12303       <div class="date">
12304          2nd May 2010
12305       </div>
12306       <div class="body">
12307         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
12308 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
12309 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
12310
12311 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
12312 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
12313 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
12314 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
12315 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
12316
12317 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
12318 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
12319
12320 <blockquote><pre>
12321 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
12322 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
12323 Password expires                                        : never
12324 Password inactive                                       : never
12325 Account expires                                         : never
12326 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
12327 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
12328 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
12329 root@tjener:~#
12330 </pre></blockquote>
12331
12332 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
12333 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
12334 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
12335 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
12336 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
12337 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
12338
12339 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
12340 intended:</p>
12341
12342 <blockquote><pre>
12343 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
12344 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
12345 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
12346 Password expires                                        : never
12347 Password inactive                                       : never
12348 Account expires                                         : never
12349 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
12350 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
12351 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
12352 root@tjener:~#
12353 </pre></blockquote>
12354
12355 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
12356 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
12357 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
12358
12359 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
12360 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
12361
12362 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
12363 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
12364
12365 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
12366 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
12367 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
12368 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
12369 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
12370 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
12371 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
12372
12373 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
12374 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
12375 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
12376 change.</p>
12377
12378       </div>
12379       <div class="tags">
12380
12381
12382         Tags: <a href="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>.
12383
12384
12385       </div>
12386     </div>
12387     <div class="padding"></div>
12388
12389     <div class="entry">
12390       <div class="title">
12391         <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>
12392       </div>
12393       <div class="date">
12394         28th April 2010
12395       </div>
12396       <div class="body">
12397         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
12398 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
12399 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
12400 and go.</p>
12401
12402 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
12403 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
12404 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
12405 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
12406
12407 <ul>
12408
12409  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
12410    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
12411    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
12412    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
12413    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
12414    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
12415    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
12416    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
12417    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
12418    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
12419    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
12420    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
12421
12422  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
12423    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
12424    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
12425    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
12426    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
12427    or the Fedora developed
12428    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
12429    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
12430
12431  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
12432    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
12433    directory, using unison.</li>
12434
12435  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
12436    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
12437    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
12438    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
12439    implemented.</li>
12440
12441  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
12442    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
12443
12444  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
12445    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
12446    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
12447
12448 </ul>
12449
12450 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
12451 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
12452 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
12453 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
12454 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
12455 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
12456 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
12457 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
12458 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
12459
12460 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
12461 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
12462
12463       </div>
12464       <div class="tags">
12465
12466
12467         Tags: <a href="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>.
12468
12469
12470       </div>
12471     </div>
12472     <div class="padding"></div>
12473
12474     <div class="entry">
12475       <div class="title">
12476         <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>
12477       </div>
12478       <div class="date">
12479         19th April 2010
12480       </div>
12481       <div class="body">
12482         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
12483 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
12484 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
12485 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
12486 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
12487 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
12488 restrictions on the web, for example from
12489 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
12490 epub-version from
12491 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
12492 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
12493 strongly recommend this book.</p>
12494
12495       </div>
12496       <div class="tags">
12497
12498
12499         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>.
12500
12501
12502       </div>
12503     </div>
12504     <div class="padding"></div>
12505
12506     <div class="entry">
12507       <div class="title">
12508         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
12509       </div>
12510       <div class="date">
12511         14th April 2010
12512       </div>
12513       <div class="body">
12514         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
12515 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
12516 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
12517 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
12518 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
12519 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
12520 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
12521 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
12522 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
12523
12524 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
12525 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
12526 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
12527 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
12528 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
12529
12530 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
12531 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
12532
12533 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
12534 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
12535 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
12536 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
12537 to work properly.</p>
12538
12539 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
12540 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
12541 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
12542 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
12543 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
12544 time.</p>
12545
12546 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
12547 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
12548 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
12549 up in a few days.</p>
12550
12551       </div>
12552       <div class="tags">
12553
12554
12555         Tags: <a href="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>.
12556
12557
12558       </div>
12559     </div>
12560     <div class="padding"></div>
12561
12562     <div class="entry">
12563       <div class="title">
12564         <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>
12565       </div>
12566       <div class="date">
12567          6th March 2010
12568       </div>
12569       <div class="body">
12570         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
12571 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
12572 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
12573 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
12574 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
12575 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
12576
12577 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
12578 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
12579 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
12580 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
12581
12582 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
12583 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
12584 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
12585 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
12586 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
12587 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
12588
12589       </div>
12590       <div class="tags">
12591
12592
12593         Tags: <a href="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>.
12594
12595
12596       </div>
12597     </div>
12598     <div class="padding"></div>
12599
12600     <div class="entry">
12601       <div class="title">
12602         <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>
12603       </div>
12604       <div class="date">
12605         11th February 2010
12606       </div>
12607       <div class="body">
12608         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
12609 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
12610 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
12611 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
12612 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
12613 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
12614 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
12615
12616 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
12617
12618 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
12619 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
12620 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
12621 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
12622
12623       </div>
12624       <div class="tags">
12625
12626
12627         Tags: <a href="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>.
12628
12629
12630       </div>
12631     </div>
12632     <div class="padding"></div>
12633
12634     <div class="entry">
12635       <div class="title">
12636         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
12637       </div>
12638       <div class="date">
12639         27th January 2010
12640       </div>
12641       <div class="body">
12642         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
12643 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
12644 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
12645 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
12646 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
12647 further.</p>
12648
12649 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
12650 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
12651 configured to be a server for the
12652 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
12653 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
12654 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
12655 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
12656 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
12657 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
12658 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
12659 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
12660 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
12661 and Nagios configuration.</p>
12662
12663 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
12664 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
12665 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
12666 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
12667
12668 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
12669 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
12670 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
12671 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
12672 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
12673 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
12674 the machine.</p>
12675
12676 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
12677 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
12678 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
12679 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
12680
12681 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
12682 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
12683 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
12684 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
12685 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
12686 everything is taken care of.</p>
12687
12688       </div>
12689       <div class="tags">
12690
12691
12692         Tags: <a href="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>.
12693
12694
12695       </div>
12696     </div>
12697     <div class="padding"></div>
12698
12699     <div class="entry">
12700       <div class="title">
12701         <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>
12702       </div>
12703       <div class="date">
12704         12th August 2009
12705       </div>
12706       <div class="body">
12707         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
12708 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
12709 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
12710 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
12711
12712 <table>
12713 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
12714 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
12715 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
12716 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
12717 </table>
12718
12719 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
12720 got these numbers:</p>
12721
12722 <table>
12723 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
12724 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
12725 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
12726 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
12727 </table>
12728
12729 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
12730
12731 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
12732 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
12733 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
12734 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
12735 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
12736
12737
12738 <table>
12739 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
12740 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
12741 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
12742 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
12743 </table>
12744
12745 <p>And with 'site:no':
12746
12747 <table>
12748 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
12749 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
12750 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
12751 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
12752 </table>
12753
12754 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
12755 numbers.</p>
12756
12757       </div>
12758       <div class="tags">
12759
12760
12761         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>.
12762
12763
12764       </div>
12765     </div>
12766     <div class="padding"></div>
12767
12768     <div class="entry">
12769       <div class="title">
12770         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
12771       </div>
12772       <div class="date">
12773          8th August 2009
12774       </div>
12775       <div class="body">
12776         <p>According to <a
12777 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
12778 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
12779 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
12780 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
12781 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
12782 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
12783 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
12784 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
12785 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
12786 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
12787
12788 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
12789 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
12790 seminar this autumn.</p>
12791
12792       </div>
12793       <div class="tags">
12794
12795
12796         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>.
12797
12798
12799       </div>
12800     </div>
12801     <div class="padding"></div>
12802
12803     <div class="entry">
12804       <div class="title">
12805         <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>
12806       </div>
12807       <div class="date">
12808         27th July 2009
12809       </div>
12810       <div class="body">
12811         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
12812 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
12813 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
12814 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
12815 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
12816 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
12817 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
12818
12819 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
12820 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
12821 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
12822
12823       </div>
12824       <div class="tags">
12825
12826
12827         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>.
12828
12829
12830       </div>
12831     </div>
12832     <div class="padding"></div>
12833
12834     <div class="entry">
12835       <div class="title">
12836         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
12837       </div>
12838       <div class="date">
12839         22nd July 2009
12840       </div>
12841       <div class="body">
12842         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
12843 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
12844 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
12845 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
12846 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
12847 the package up to date.</p>
12848
12849 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
12850 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
12851 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
12852 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
12853 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
12854 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
12855 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
12856 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
12857 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
12858 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
12859 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
12860 working on the future release.</p>
12861
12862 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
12863 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
12864
12865       </div>
12866       <div class="tags">
12867
12868
12869         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>.
12870
12871
12872       </div>
12873     </div>
12874     <div class="padding"></div>
12875
12876     <div class="entry">
12877       <div class="title">
12878         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
12879       </div>
12880       <div class="date">
12881         24th June 2009
12882       </div>
12883       <div class="body">
12884         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
12885 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
12886 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
12887 funded
12888 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
12889 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
12890 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
12891 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
12892 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
12893 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
12894
12895 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
12896 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
12897 boot:</p>
12898
12899 <ul>
12900
12901 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
12902
12903 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
12904    clock is in UTC.</li>
12905
12906 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
12907    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
12908    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
12909
12910 </ul>
12911
12912 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
12913 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
12914 Villegas</a>.
12915
12916 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
12917 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
12918 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
12919 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
12920 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
12921 using this.</p>
12922
12923 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
12924 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
12925 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
12926 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
12927 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
12928 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
12929 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
12930
12931       </div>
12932       <div class="tags">
12933
12934
12935         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>.
12936
12937
12938       </div>
12939     </div>
12940     <div class="padding"></div>
12941
12942     <div class="entry">
12943       <div class="title">
12944         <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>
12945       </div>
12946       <div class="date">
12947          2nd May 2009
12948       </div>
12949       <div class="body">
12950         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
12951 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
12952 do not yet know them.</p>
12953
12954 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
12955 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
12956 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
12957 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
12958 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
12959 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
12960 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
12961 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
12962 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
12963 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
12964 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
12965
12966 <p>The second one is
12967 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
12968 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
12969 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
12970 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
12971 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
12972 and the company behind it is running
12973 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
12974 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
12975 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
12976 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
12977 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
12978 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
12979 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
12980 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
12981
12982 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
12983 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
12984 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
12985 surrounded by today.</p>
12986
12987       </div>
12988       <div class="tags">
12989
12990
12991         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>.
12992
12993
12994       </div>
12995     </div>
12996     <div class="padding"></div>
12997
12998     <div class="entry">
12999       <div class="title">
13000         <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>
13001       </div>
13002       <div class="date">
13003         28th April 2009
13004       </div>
13005       <div class="body">
13006         <p>Julien Blache
13007 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
13008 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
13009 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
13010 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
13011 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
13012 properties.</p>
13013
13014       </div>
13015       <div class="tags">
13016
13017
13018         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>.
13019
13020
13021       </div>
13022     </div>
13023     <div class="padding"></div>
13024
13025     <div class="entry">
13026       <div class="title">
13027         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
13028       </div>
13029       <div class="date">
13030          5th April 2009
13031       </div>
13032       <div class="body">
13033         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
13034 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
13035 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
13036 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
13037 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
13038 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
13039 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
13040 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
13041
13042 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
13043 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
13044 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
13045   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
13046   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
13047
13048 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
13049 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
13050 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
13051 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
13052
13053 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
13054 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
13055 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
13056 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
13057
13058 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
13059 set -e
13060 URL="$1"
13061 SAVEFILE="$2"
13062 DURATION="$3"
13063 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
13064   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
13065   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
13066 pid=$!
13067 sleep $DURATION
13068 kill $pid
13069 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
13070
13071       </div>
13072       <div class="tags">
13073
13074
13075         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>.
13076
13077
13078       </div>
13079     </div>
13080     <div class="padding"></div>
13081
13082     <div class="entry">
13083       <div class="title">
13084         <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>
13085       </div>
13086       <div class="date">
13087         30th March 2009
13088       </div>
13089       <div class="body">
13090         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
13091 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
13092 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
13093 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
13094 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
13095 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
13096 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
13097 application.</p>
13098
13099 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
13100 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
13101 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
13102 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
13103 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
13104 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
13105 blocked from doing so.</p>
13106
13107 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
13108 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
13109 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
13110 requirements change.</p>
13111
13112 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
13113 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
13114 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
13115
13116       </div>
13117       <div class="tags">
13118
13119
13120         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>.
13121
13122
13123       </div>
13124     </div>
13125     <div class="padding"></div>
13126
13127     <div class="entry">
13128       <div class="title">
13129         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
13130       </div>
13131       <div class="date">
13132         29th March 2009
13133       </div>
13134       <div class="body">
13135         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
13136 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
13137 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
13138 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
13139 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
13140 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
13141 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
13142 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
13143 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
13144 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
13145 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
13146 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
13147 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
13148 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
13149 now. :)</p>
13150
13151       </div>
13152       <div class="tags">
13153
13154
13155         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>.
13156
13157
13158       </div>
13159     </div>
13160     <div class="padding"></div>
13161
13162     <div class="entry">
13163       <div class="title">
13164         <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>
13165       </div>
13166       <div class="date">
13167         29th March 2009
13168       </div>
13169       <div class="body">
13170         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
13171 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
13172 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
13173 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
13174 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
13175 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
13176
13177 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
13178 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
13179 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
13180 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
13181 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
13182 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
13183 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
13184 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
13185 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
13186 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
13187 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
13188 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
13189 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
13190
13191 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
13192 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
13193 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
13194 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
13195
13196 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
13197 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
13198
13199 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
13200 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
13201 new IETF work group?</p>
13202
13203       </div>
13204       <div class="tags">
13205
13206
13207         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>.
13208
13209
13210       </div>
13211     </div>
13212     <div class="padding"></div>
13213
13214     <div class="entry">
13215       <div class="title">
13216         <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>
13217       </div>
13218       <div class="date">
13219         28th February 2009
13220       </div>
13221       <div class="body">
13222         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
13223 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
13224 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
13225 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
13226 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
13227 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
13228 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
13229 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
13230 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
13231 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
13232 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
13233 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
13234 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
13235 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
13236 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
13237 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
13238 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
13239 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
13240 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
13241 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
13242 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
13243 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
13244 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
13245 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
13246 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
13247 machine.</p>
13248
13249 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
13250 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
13251 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
13252 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
13253 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
13254 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
13255 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
13256
13257 <pre>
13258 use LWP::Simple;
13259 use POSIX;
13260 use WWW::Mechanize;
13261 use Date::Parse;
13262 [...]
13263 sub get_support_info {
13264     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
13265     my $str;
13266
13267     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
13268         # fetch website from Dell support
13269         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";
13270         my $webpage = get($url);
13271         return undef unless ($webpage);
13272
13273         my $daysleft = -1;
13274         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
13275         foreach my $line (@lines) {
13276             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
13277             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
13278             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
13279
13280             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
13281             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
13282             my $lastend = "";
13283             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
13284                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
13285
13286                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
13287                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
13288                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
13289                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
13290                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
13291                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
13292                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
13293             }
13294             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
13295             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
13296                 if ($lastend lt $today);
13297         }
13298     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
13299         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
13300         my $url =
13301             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
13302         $mech->get($url);
13303         my $fields = {
13304             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
13305             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
13306             'country' => 'NO',
13307             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
13308             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
13309         };
13310         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
13311                             fields      => $fields );
13312         # Next step is screen scraping
13313         my $content = $mech->content();
13314
13315         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
13316         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
13317         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
13318         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
13319
13320         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
13321
13322         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
13323             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
13324                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
13325             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
13326             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
13327                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
13328             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
13329                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
13330
13331             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
13332
13333             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
13334                 if ($end lt $today);
13335         }
13336     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
13337         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
13338         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
13339         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
13340             my $content =
13341                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
13342             if ($content) {
13343                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
13344                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
13345                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
13346                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
13347
13348                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
13349                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
13350
13351                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
13352
13353                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
13354                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
13355                     if ($end lt $today);
13356             }
13357         }
13358     }
13359     return $str;
13360 }
13361 </pre>
13362
13363 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
13364 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
13365 from dmidecode.</p>
13366
13367 <pre>
13368 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
13369                        "447707-B21");
13370 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
13371 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
13372                        "1234567");
13373 </pre>
13374
13375 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
13376 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
13377
13378 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
13379 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
13380 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
13381 do so.</p>
13382
13383       </div>
13384       <div class="tags">
13385
13386
13387         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>.
13388
13389
13390       </div>
13391     </div>
13392     <div class="padding"></div>
13393
13394     <div class="entry">
13395       <div class="title">
13396         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
13397       </div>
13398       <div class="date">
13399         20th February 2009
13400       </div>
13401       <div class="body">
13402         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
13403 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
13404 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
13405 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
13406 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
13407 the "missing" computer.</p>
13408
13409 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
13410 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
13411 code blocks as defined in the
13412 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
13413 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
13414 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
13415 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
13416 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
13417 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
13418 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
13419 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
13420 codes.</p>
13421
13422 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
13423 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
13424 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
13425 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
13426 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
13427 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
13428
13429 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
13430 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
13431 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
13432 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
13433 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
13434 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
13435 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
13436 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
13437 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
13438 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
13439
13440 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
13441 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
13442 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
13443
13444       </div>
13445       <div class="tags">
13446
13447
13448         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>.
13449
13450
13451       </div>
13452     </div>
13453     <div class="padding"></div>
13454
13455     <div class="entry">
13456       <div class="title">
13457         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_web_browser_developers_make_a_video_player___.html">When web browser developers make a video player...</a>
13458       </div>
13459       <div class="date">
13460         17th January 2009
13461       </div>
13462       <div class="body">
13463         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
13464 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
13465 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
13466 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
13467 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
13468 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
13469 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
13470 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
13471 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
13472 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
13473 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
13474 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
13475 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
13476 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
13477
13478 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
13479 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
13480 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
13481 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
13482 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
13483 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
13484 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
13485 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
13486 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
13487 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
13488 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
13489 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
13490 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
13491 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
13492 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
13493 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
13494 playing when the download is done.</p>
13495
13496 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
13497 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
13498 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
13499 too.</p>
13500
13501 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
13502 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
13503 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
13504 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
13505
13506       </div>
13507       <div class="tags">
13508
13509
13510         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>.
13511
13512
13513       </div>
13514     </div>
13515     <div class="padding"></div>
13516
13517     <div class="entry">
13518       <div class="title">
13519         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
13520       </div>
13521       <div class="date">
13522         28th December 2008
13523       </div>
13524       <div class="body">
13525         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
13526 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
13527 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
13528 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
13529 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
13530 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
13531 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
13532 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
13533 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
13534 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
13535 source, sink and mixer applications and
13536 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
13537 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
13538 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
13539 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
13540 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
13541 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
13542 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
13543 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
13544 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
13545
13546 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
13547 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
13548 larger stick as well.</p>
13549
13550       </div>
13551       <div class="tags">
13552
13553
13554         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>.
13555
13556
13557       </div>
13558     </div>
13559     <div class="padding"></div>
13560
13561     <div class="entry">
13562       <div class="title">
13563         <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>
13564       </div>
13565       <div class="date">
13566          7th December 2008
13567       </div>
13568       <div class="body">
13569         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
13570 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
13571 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
13572 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
13573 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
13574 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
13575 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
13576 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
13577
13578 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
13579 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
13580 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
13581 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
13582 of these cards.</p>
13583
13584       </div>
13585       <div class="tags">
13586
13587
13588         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>.
13589
13590
13591       </div>
13592     </div>
13593     <div class="padding"></div>
13594
13595     <div class="entry">
13596       <div class="title">
13597         <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>
13598       </div>
13599       <div class="date">
13600         25th November 2008
13601       </div>
13602       <div class="body">
13603         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
13604 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
13605 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
13606 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
13607 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
13608 notes are available on
13609 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
13610 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
13611 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
13612 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
13613 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
13614 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
13615 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
13616 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
13617 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
13618
13619 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
13620 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
13621
13622       </div>
13623       <div class="tags">
13624
13625
13626         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>.
13627
13628
13629       </div>
13630     </div>
13631     <div class="padding"></div>
13632
13633     <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>
13634     <div id="sidebar">
13635
13636
13637
13638 <h2>Archive</h2>
13639 <ul>
13640
13641 <li>2013
13642 <ul>
13643
13644 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
13645
13646 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (4)</a></li>
13647
13648 </ul></li>
13649
13650 <li>2012
13651 <ul>
13652
13653 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
13654
13655 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
13656
13657 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
13658
13659 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
13660
13661 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
13662
13663 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
13664
13665 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
13666
13667 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
13668
13669 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
13670
13671 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
13672
13673 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
13674
13675 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
13676
13677 </ul></li>
13678
13679 <li>2011
13680 <ul>
13681
13682 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
13683
13684 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
13685
13686 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
13687
13688 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
13689
13690 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
13691
13692 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
13693
13694 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
13695
13696 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
13697
13698 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
13699
13700 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
13701
13702 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
13703
13704 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
13705
13706 </ul></li>
13707
13708 <li>2010
13709 <ul>
13710
13711 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
13712
13713 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
13714
13715 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
13716
13717 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
13718
13719 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
13720
13721 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
13722
13723 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
13724
13725 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
13726
13727 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
13728
13729 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
13730
13731 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
13732
13733 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
13734
13735 </ul></li>
13736
13737 <li>2009
13738 <ul>
13739
13740 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
13741
13742 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
13743
13744 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
13745
13746 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
13747
13748 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
13749
13750 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
13751
13752 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
13753
13754 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
13755
13756 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
13757
13758 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
13759
13760 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
13761
13762 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
13763
13764 </ul></li>
13765
13766 <li>2008
13767 <ul>
13768
13769 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
13770
13771 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
13772
13773 </ul></li>
13774
13775 </ul>
13776
13777
13778
13779 <h2>Tags</h2>
13780 <ul>
13781
13782  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
13783
13784  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
13785
13786  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
13787
13788  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
13789
13790  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (6)</a></li>
13791
13792  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
13793
13794  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
13795
13796  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (70)</a></li>
13797
13798  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (118)</a></li>
13799
13800  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (9)</a></li>
13801
13802  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (7)</a></li>
13803
13804  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
13805
13806  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (177)</a></li>
13807
13808  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
13809
13810  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
13811
13812  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (10)</a></li>
13813
13814  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (9)</a></li>
13815
13816  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (32)</a></li>
13817
13818  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (5)</a></li>
13819
13820  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (17)</a></li>
13821
13822  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
13823
13824  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
13825
13826  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
13827
13828  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
13829
13830  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (221)</a></li>
13831
13832  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (148)</a></li>
13833
13834  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (6)</a></li>
13835
13836  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
13837
13838  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (41)</a></li>
13839
13840  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (63)</a></li>
13841
13842  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
13843
13844  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
13845
13846  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
13847
13848  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (6)</a></li>
13849
13850  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
13851
13852  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
13853
13854  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
13855
13856  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (28)</a></li>
13857
13858  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
13859
13860  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
13861
13862  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (39)</a></li>
13863
13864  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
13865
13866  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (6)</a></li>
13867
13868  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (14)</a></li>
13869
13870  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
13871
13872  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (7)</a></li>
13873
13874  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (35)</a></li>
13875
13876  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
13877
13878  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (26)</a></li>
13879
13880 </ul>
13881
13882
13883     </div>
13884     <p style="text-align: right">
13885  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
13886 </p>
13887
13888   </body>
13889 </html>