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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/How_to_add_extra_storage_servers_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">How to add extra storage servers in Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         14th March 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>On larger sites, it is useful to use a dedicated storage server for
  32 storing user home directories and data.  The design for handling this
  33 in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, is
  34 to update the automount rules in LDAP and let the automount daemon on
  35 the clients take care of the rest.  I was reminded about the need to
  36 document this better when one of the customers of
  37 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a>, where I am
  38 on the board of directors, asked about how to do this.  The steps to
  39 get this working are the following:</p>
  40
  41 <p><ol>
  42
  43 <li>Add new storage server in DNS.  I use nas-server.intern as the
  44 example host here.</li>
  45
  46 <li>Add automoun LDAP information about this server in LDAP, to allow
  47 all clients to automatically mount it on reqeust.</li>
  48
  49 <li>Add the relevant entries in tjener.intern:/etc/fstab, because
  50 tjener.intern do not use automount to avoid mounting loops.</li>
  51
  52 </ol></p>
  53
  54 <p>DNS entries are added in GOsa², and not described here.  Follow the
  55 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/GettingStarted">instructions
  56 in the manual</a> (Machine Management with GOsa² in section etting
  57 started).</p>
  58
  59 <p>Ensure that the NFS export points on the server are exported to the
  60 relevant subnets or machines:</p>
  61
  62 <p><blockquote><pre>
  63 root@tjener:~# showmount -e nas-server
  64 Export list for nas-server:
  65 /storage         10.0.0.0/8
  66 root@tjener:~#
  67 </pre></blockquote></p>
  68
  69 <p>Here everything on the backbone network is granted access to the
  70 /storage export.  With NFSv3 it is slightly better to limit it to
  71 netgroup membership or single IP addresses to have some limits on the
  72 NFS access.</p>
  73
  74 <p>The next step is to update LDAP.  This can not be done using GOsa²,
  75 because it lack a module for automount.  Instead, use ldapvi and add
  76 the required LDAP objects using an editor.</p>
  77
  78 <p><blockquote><pre>
  79 ldapvi --ldap-conf -ZD '(cn=admin)' -b ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
  80 </pre></blockquote></p>
  81
  82 <p>When the editor show up, add the following LDAP objects at the
  83 bottom of the document.  The "/&" part in the last LDAP object is a
  84 wild card matching everything the nas-server exports, removing the
  85 need to list individual mount points in LDAP.</p>
  86
  87 <p><blockquote><pre>
  88 add cn=nas-server,ou=auto.skole,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
  89 objectClass: automount
  90 cn: nas-server
  91 automountInformation: -fstype=autofs --timeout=60 ldap:ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
  92
  93 add ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
  94 objectClass: top
  95 objectClass: automountMap
  96 ou: auto.nas-server
  97
  98 add cn=/,ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
  99 objectClass: automount
 100 cn: /
 101 automountInformation: -fstype=nfs,tcp,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,rw,intr,hard,nodev,nosuid,noatime nas-server.intern:/&
 102 </pre></blockquote></p>
 103
 104 <p>The last step to remember is to mount the relevant mount points in
 105 tjener.intern by adding them to /etc/fstab, creating the mount
 106 directories using mkdir and running "mount -a" to mount them.</p>
 107
 108 <p>When this is done, your users should be able to access the files on
 109 the storage server directly by just visiting the
 110 /tjener/nas-server/storage/ directory using any application on any
 111 workstation, LTSP client or LTSP server.</p>
 112
 113       </div>
 114       <div class="tags">
 115
 116
 117         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>.
 118
 119
 120       </div>
 121     </div>
 122     <div class="padding"></div>
 123
 124     <div class="entry">
 125       <div class="title">
 126         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
 127       </div>
 128       <div class="date">
 129         22nd February 2014
 130       </div>
 131       <div class="body">
 132         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
 133 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
 134 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
 135 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
 136 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
 137 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
 138 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
 139 proper home since then.</p>
 140
 141 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
 142 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
 143 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
 144 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
 145 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
 146
 147 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
 148 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
 149 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
 150 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
 151 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
 152 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
 153 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
 154 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
 155 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
 156
 157       </div>
 158       <div class="tags">
 159
 160
 161         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>.
 162
 163
 164       </div>
 165     </div>
 166     <div class="padding"></div>
 167
 168     <div class="entry">
 169       <div class="title">
 170         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
 171       </div>
 172       <div class="date">
 173          3rd February 2014
 174       </div>
 175       <div class="body">
 176         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
 177 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
 178 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
 179 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
 180 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
 181 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
 182 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
 183 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
 184 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
 185
 186 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
 187 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
 188 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
 189 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
 190 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
 191 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
 192
 193 <p><blockquote><pre>
 194 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
 195 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
 196 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
 197 dhclient /dev/eth0
 198 </pre></blockquote></p>
 199
 200 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
 201 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
 202 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
 203
 204 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
 205 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
 206 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
 207 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
 208 side.</p>
 209
 210 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
 211 stuff:</p>
 212
 213 <p><blockquote><pre>
 214 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
 215 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
 216 EOF
 217 apt-get update
 218 apt-get dist-upgrade
 219 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
 220     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
 221 update-alternatives --config runsystem
 222 </pre></blockquote></p>
 223
 224 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
 225 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
 226 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
 227 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
 228 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
 229 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
 230 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
 231 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
 232 ssh instead.
 233
 234 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
 235 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
 236 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
 237 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
 238 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
 239 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
 240
 241 <p><blockquote><pre>
 242 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
 243 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
 244 EOF
 245 </pre></blockquote></p>
 246
 247 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
 248 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
 249 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
 250 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
 251
 252 <p><blockquote><pre>
 253 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
 254 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
 255 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
 256 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
 257 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
 258 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
 259 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
 260 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
 261 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
 262 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
 263 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
 264 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
 265 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
 266 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
 267 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
 268 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
 269 #
 270 </pre></blockquote></p>
 271
 272 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
 273 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
 274 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
 275 command line stuff.<p>
 276
 277       </div>
 278       <div class="tags">
 279
 280
 281         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>.
 282
 283
 284       </div>
 285     </div>
 286     <div class="padding"></div>
 287
 288     <div class="entry">
 289       <div class="title">
 290         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_fist_full_of_non_anonymous_Bitcoins.html">A fist full of non-anonymous Bitcoins</a>
 291       </div>
 292       <div class="date">
 293         29th January 2014
 294       </div>
 295       <div class="body">
 296         <p>Bitcoin is a incredible use of peer to peer communication and
 297 encryption, allowing direct and immediate money transfer without any
 298 central control.  It is sometimes claimed to be ideal for illegal
 299 activity, which I believe is quite a long way from the truth.  At least
 300 I would not conduct illegal money transfers using a system where the
 301 details of every transaction are kept forever.  This point is
 302 investigated in
 303 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">USENIX ;login:</a>
 304 from December 2013, in the article
 305 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/03_meiklejohn-online.pdf">A
 306 Fistful of Bitcoins - Characterizing Payments Among Men with No
 307 Names</a>" by Sarah Meiklejohn, Marjori Pomarole,Grant Jordan, Kirill
 308 Levchenko, Damon McCoy, Geoffrey M. Voelker, and Stefan Savage.  They
 309 analyse the transaction log in the Bitcoin system, using it to find
 310 addresses belong to individuals and organisations and follow the flow
 311 of money from both Bitcoin theft and trades on Silk Road to where the
 312 money end up.  This is how they wrap up their article:</p>
 313
 314 <p><blockquote>
 315 <p>"To demonstrate the usefulness of this type of analysis, we turned
 316 our attention to criminal activity. In the Bitcoin economy, criminal
 317 activity can appear in a number of forms, such as dealing drugs on
 318 Silk Road or simply stealing someone else’s bitcoins. We followed the
 319 flow of bitcoins out of Silk Road (in particular, from one notorious
 320 address) and from a number of highly publicized thefts to see whether
 321 we could track the bitcoins to known services. Although some of the
 322 thieves attempted to use sophisticated mixing techniques (or possibly
 323 mix services) to obscure the flow of bitcoins, for the most part
 324 tracking the bitcoins was quite straightforward, and we ultimately saw
 325 large quantities of bitcoins flow to a variety of exchanges directly
 326 from the point of theft (or the withdrawal from Silk Road).</p>
 327
 328 <p>As acknowledged above, following stolen bitcoins to the point at
 329 which they are deposited into an exchange does not in itself identify
 330 the thief; however, it does enable further de-anonymization in the
 331 case in which certain agencies can determine (through, for example,
 332 subpoena power) the real-world owner of the account into which the
 333 stolen bitcoins were deposited.  Because such exchanges seem to serve
 334 as chokepoints into and out of the Bitcoin economy (i.e., there are
 335 few alternative ways to cash out), we conclude that using Bitcoin for
 336 money laundering or other illicit purposes does not (at least at
 337 present) seem to be particularly attractive."</p>
 338 </blockquote><p>
 339
 340 <p>These researches are not the first to analyse the Bitcoin
 341 transaction log.  The 2011 paper
 342 "<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.4524">An Analysis of Anonymity in
 343 the Bitcoin System</A>" by Fergal Reid and Martin Harrigan is
 344 summarized like this:</p>
 345
 346 <p><blockquote>
 347 "Anonymity in Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic currency system, is a
 348 complicated issue. Within the system, users are identified by
 349 public-keys only. An attacker wishing to de-anonymize its users will
 350 attempt to construct the one-to-many mapping between users and
 351 public-keys and associate information external to the system with the
 352 users. Bitcoin tries to prevent this attack by storing the mapping of
 353 a user to his or her public-keys on that user's node only and by
 354 allowing each user to generate as many public-keys as required. In
 355 this chapter we consider the topological structure of two networks
 356 derived from Bitcoin's public transaction history. We show that the
 357 two networks have a non-trivial topological structure, provide
 358 complementary views of the Bitcoin system and have implications for
 359 anonymity. We combine these structures with external information and
 360 techniques such as context discovery and flow analysis to investigate
 361 an alleged theft of Bitcoins, which, at the time of the theft, had a
 362 market value of approximately half a million U.S. dollars."
 363 </blockquote></p>
 364
 365 <p>I hope these references can help kill the urban myth that Bitcoin
 366 is anonymous.  It isn't really a good fit for illegal activites.  Use
 367 cash if you need to stay anonymous, at least until regular DNA
 368 sampling of notes and coins become the norm. :)</p>
 369
 370 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 371 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 372 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 373
 374       </div>
 375       <div class="tags">
 376
 377
 378         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>.
 379
 380
 381       </div>
 382     </div>
 383     <div class="padding"></div>
 384
 385     <div class="entry">
 386       <div class="title">
 387         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
 388       </div>
 389       <div class="date">
 390         14th January 2014
 391       </div>
 392       <div class="body">
 393         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
 394 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
 395 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
 396 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
 397 the source.  The company behind it provide
 398 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
 399 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
 400 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
 401 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
 402 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
 403 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
 404 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
 405 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
 406 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
 407 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
 408 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
 409 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
 410 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
 411 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
 412 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
 413 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
 414 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
 415 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
 416 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
 417
 418 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
 419
 420 <ul>
 421
 422   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
 423   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
 424   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
 425
 426 </ul>
 427
 428 <p>You can
 429 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
 430 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
 431 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
 432 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
 433 include a test suite check.</p>
 434
 435       </div>
 436       <div class="tags">
 437
 438
 439         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 440
 441
 442       </div>
 443     </div>
 444     <div class="padding"></div>
 445
 446     <div class="entry">
 447       <div class="title">
 448         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Dominik_George.html">Debian Edu interview: Dominik George</a>
 449       </div>
 450       <div class="date">
 451         25th December 2013
 452       </div>
 453       <div class="body">
 454         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 455 project</a> consist of both newcomers and old timers, and this time I
 456 was able to get an interview with a newcomer in the project who showed
 457 up on the IRC channel a few weeks ago to let us know about his
 458 successful installation of Debian Edu Wheezy in his School.  Say hello
 459 to <a href="https://www.ohloh.net/accounts/Natureshadow">Dominik
 460 George</a>.</p>
 461
 462 <!-- http://www.dominik-george.de/images/foto.jpg -->
 463
 464 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 465
 466 <p>I am a 23 year-old student from Germany who has spent half of his
 467 life with open source. In "real life", I am, as already mentioned, a
 468 student in the fields of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering,
 469 Information Technologies and Anglistics. Due to my (only partially
 470 voluntary) huge engagement in the open source world, these things are
 471 a bit vacant right now however.</p>
 472
 473 <p>I also have been working as a project teacher at a Gymasnium
 474 (public school) for various years now. I took up that work some time
 475 around 2005 when still attending that school myself and have continued
 476 it until today. I also had been running the (kind of very advanced)
 477 network of that school together with a team of very interested and
 478 talented students in the age of 11 to 15 years, who took the chance to
 479 learn a lot about open source and networking before I left the school
 480 to help building another school's informational education concept from
 481 scratch.</p>
 482
 483 <p>That said, one might see me as a kind of "glue" between school kids
 484 and the elderly of teachers as well as between the open source
 485 ecosystem and the (even more complex) educational ecosystem.</p>
 486
 487 <p>When I am not busy with open source or education, I like Geocaching
 488 and cycling.</p>
 489
 490 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
 491 project?</strong></p>
 492
 493 <p>I think that happened some time around 2009 when I first attended
 494 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">FrOSCon</a> and visited the project
 495 booth. I think I wasn't too interested back then because I used to
 496 have an attitude of disliking software that does too much stuff on its
 497 own. Maybe I was too inexperienced to realise the upsides of an
 498 "out-of-the-box" solution ;).</p>
 499
 500 <p>The first time I actively talked to Skolelinux people was at
 501 <a href="http://www.openrheinruhr.de">OpenRheinRuhr</a> 2011 when the
 502 BiscuIT project, a home-grewn software used by my school for various
 503 really cool things from timetables and class contact lists to lunch
 504 ordering, student ID card printing and project elections first got to
 505 a stage where it could have been published. I asked the Skolelinux
 506 guys running the booth if the project were interested in it and gave a
 507 small demonstration, but there wasn't any real feedback and the guys
 508 seemed rather uninterested.</p>
 509
 510 <p>After I left the school where I developed the software, it got
 511 mostly lost, but I am now reimplementing it for my new school. I have
 512 reusability and compatibility in mind, and I hop there will be a new
 513 basis for contributing it to the Skolelinux project ;)!</p>
 514
 515 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 516 Edu?</strong></p>
 517
 518 <p>The most important advantage seems to be that it "just
 519 works". After overcoming some minor (but still very annoying) glitches
 520 in the installer, I got a fully functional, working school network,
 521 without the month-long hassle I experienced when setting all that up
 522 from scratch in earlier years. And above that, it rocked - I didn't
 523 have any real hardware at hand, because the school was just founded
 524 and has no money whatsoever, so I installed a combined server (main
 525 server, terminal services and workstation) in a VM on my personal
 526 notebook, bridging the LTSP network interface to the ethernet port,
 527 and then PXE-booted the Windows notebooks that were lying around from
 528 it. I could use 8 clients without any performance issues, by using a
 529 tiny little VM on a tiny little notebook. I think that's enough to say
 530 that it rocks!</p>
 531
 532 <p>Secondly, there are marketing reasons. Life's bad, and so no
 533 politician will ever permit a setup described as "Debian, an universal
 534 operating system, with some really cool educational tools" while they
 535 will be jsut fine with "Skolelinux, a single-purpose solution for your
 536 school network", even if both turn out to be the very same thing (yes,
 537 this is unfair towards the Skolelinux project, and must not be taken
 538 too seriously - you get the idea, anyway).</p>
 539
 540 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 541 Edu?</strong></p>
 542
 543 <p>I have not been involved with Skolelinux long enough to really
 544 answer this question in a fair way. Thus, please allow me to put it in
 545 other words: "What do you expect from Skolelinux to keep liking it?" I
 546 can list a few points about that:</p>
 547
 548 <ul>
 549
 550  <li>always strive to get all things integrated into Debian upstream
 551  <li>be open to discussion about changes and the like, even with newcomers
 552  <li>be helpful at being helpful ;)
 553
 554 </ul>
 555
 556 <p>I'm really sorry I cannot say much more about that :(!</p>
 557
 558 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 559
 560 <p>First of all, all software I use is free and open. I have abandoned
 561 all non-free software (except for firmware on my darned phone) this
 562 year.</p>
 563
 564 <p>I run Debian GNU/Linux on all PC systems I use. On that, I mostly
 565 run text tools. I use
 566 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm">mksh</a> as shell,
 567 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/jupp.htm">jupp</a> as very advanced
 568 text editor (I even got the developer to help me write a script/macro
 569 based full-featured student management software with the two),
 570 <a href="http://mcabber.com/">mcabber</a> for XMPP and
 571 <a href="http://www.irssi.org/">irssi</a> for IRC. For that overly
 572 coloured world called the WWW, I use
 573 <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">Iceweasel
 574 (Firefox)</a>. Oh, and <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a> for
 575 e-mail.</p>
 576
 577 <p>However, while I am personally aware of the fact that text tools
 578 are more efficient and powerful than anything else, I also use (or at
 579 least operate) some tools that are suitable to bring open source to
 580 kids. One of these things is <a href="http://jappix.org/">Jappix</a>,
 581 which I already introduced to some kids even before they got aware of
 582 Facebook, making them see for themselves that they do not need
 583 Facebook now ;).</p>
 584
 585 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 586 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 587
 588 <p>Well, that's a two-sided thing. One side is what I believe, and one
 589 side is what I have experienced.</p>
 590
 591 <p>I believe that the right strategy is showing them the benefits. But
 592 that won't work out as long as the acceptance of free alternatives
 593 grows globally. What I mean is that if all the kids are almost forced
 594 to use Windows, Facebook, Skype, you name it at home, they will not
 595 see why they would want to use alternatives at school. I have seen
 596 students take seat in front of a fully-functional, modern Debian
 597 desktop that could do anything their Windows at home could do, and
 598 they jsut refused to use it because "Linux sucks". It is something
 599 that makes the council of our city spend around 600000 € to buy
 600 software - not including hardware, mind you - for operating school
 601 networks, and for installing a system that, as has been proved, does
 602 not work. For those of you readers who are good at maths, have you
 603 already found out how many lives could have been saved with that money
 604 if we had instead used it to bring education to parts of the world
 605 that need it? I have, and found it to be nothing less dramatic than
 606 plain criminal.</p>
 607
 608 <p>That said, the only feasible way appears to be the bottom up
 609 method. We have to bring free software to kids and parents. I have
 610 founded an association named
 611 <a href="https://www.teckids.org">Teckids</a> here in Germany that does
 612 just that. We organise several events for kids and adolescents in the
 613 area of free and open source software, for example the
 614 <a href="http://kids.froscon.org">FrogLabs</a>, which share staff with
 615 Teckids and are the youth programme of
 616 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">the Free and Open Source Software
 617 Conference (FrOSCon)</a>. We do a lot more than most other conferences
 618 - this year, we first offered the FrogLabs as a holiday camp for kids
 619 aged 10 to 16. It was a huge success, with approx. 30 kids taking part
 620 and learning with and about free software through a whole weekend. All
 621 of us had a lot of fun, and the results were really exciting.</p>
 622
 623 <p>Apart from that, we are preparing a campaign that is supposed to bring
 624 the message of free alternatives to stuff kids use every day to them and
 625 their parents, e.g. the use of Jabber / Jappix instead of Facebook and
 626 Skype. To make that possible, we are planning to get together a team of
 627 clever kids who understand very well what their peers need and can bring
 628 it across to them. So we will have a peer-driven network of adolescents
 629 who teach each other and collect feedback from the community of minors.
 630 We then take that feedback and our own experience to work closely with
 631 open source projects, such as Skolelinux or Jappix, at improving their
 632 software in a way that makes it more and more attractive for the target
 633 group. At least I hope that we will have good cooperation with
 634 Skolelinux in the future ;)!</p>
 635
 636 <p>So in conclusion, what I believe is that, if it weren't for the world
 637 being so bad, it should be very clear to the political decision makers
 638 that the only way to go nowadays is free software for various reasons,
 639 but I have learnt that the only way that seems to work is bottom up.</p>
 640
 641 <!--
 642
 643 >  * Who should be interviewed with this questions in the future?
 644
 645 That's probably the hardest question of them all, as I do not know the
 646 community. However, I would be willing to do the following:
 647
 648  <li>Run an interview with a German headteacher who is very open to
 649    free software, and also prefers it, but cannot really use it because
 650    of the decision makers above;
 651  <li>Run interviews with some kids, both with and without previous
 652    knowledge about free software
 653
 654 If that is wanted, just let me know ;).
 655
 656 -->
 657
 658       </div>
 659       <div class="tags">
 660
 661
 662         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>.
 663
 664
 665       </div>
 666     </div>
 667     <div class="padding"></div>
 668
 669     <div class="entry">
 670       <div class="title">
 671         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Klaus_Knopper.html">Debian Edu interview: Klaus Knopper</a>
 672       </div>
 673       <div class="date">
 674          6th December 2013
 675       </div>
 676       <div class="body">
 677         <p>It has been a while since I managed to publish the last interview,
 678 but the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
 679 Skolelinux</a> community is still going strong, and yesterday we even
 680 had a new school administrator show up on
 681 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a> to share
 682 his success story with installing Debian Edu at their school.  This
 683 time I have been able to get some helpful comments from the creator of
 684 Knoppix, Klaus Knopper, who was involved in a Skolelinux project in
 685 Germany a few years ago.</p>
 686
 687 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 688
 689 <p>I am Klaus Knopper.  I have a master degree in electrical
 690 engineering, and is currently professor in information management at
 691 the university of applied sciences Kaiserslautern / Germany and
 692 freelance Open Source software developer and consultant.</p>
 693
 694 <p>All of this is pretty much of the work I spend my days with. Apart
 695 from teaching, I'm also conducting some more or less experimental
 696 projects like the <a href="http://www.knoppix.org">Knoppix GNU/Linux live
 697 system</a> (Debian-based like Skolelinux),
 698 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html">ADRIANE</a>
 699 (a blind-friendly talking desktop system) and
 700 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/linbo/index-en.html">LINBO</a>
 701 (Linux-based network boot console, a fast remote install and repair
 702 system supporting various operating systems).</p>
 703
 704 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
 705 project?</strong></p>
 706
 707 <p>The credit for this have to go to Kurt Gramlich, who is the German
 708 coordinator for Skolelinux.  We were looking for an all-in-one open
 709 source community-supported distribution for schools, and Kurt
 710 introduced us to Skolelinux for this purpose.</p>
 711
 712 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 713 Edu?</strong></p>
 714
 715 <ul>
 716   <li>Quick installation,</li>
 717   <li>works (almost) out of the box,</li>
 718   <li>contains many useful software packages for teaching and learning,</li>
 719   <li>is a purely community-based distro and not controlled by a
 720     single company,</li>
 721   <li>has a large number of supporters and teachers who share their
 722     experience and problem solutions.</li>
 723 </ul>
 724
 725 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 726 Edu?</strong></p>
 727
 728 <ul>
 729   <li>Skolelinux is - as we had to learn - not easily upgradable to
 730   the next version.  Opposed to its genuine Debian base, upgrading to
 731   a new version means a full new installation from scratch to get it
 732   working again reliably.
 733
 734   <li>Skolelinux is based on Debian/stable, and therefore always a
 735   little outdated in terms of program versions compared to Edubuntu or
 736   similar educational Linux distros, which rather use Debian/testing
 737   as their base.
 738
 739   <li>Skolelinux has some very self-opinionated and stubborn default
 740   configuration which in my opinion adds unnecessary complexity and is
 741   not always suitable for a schools needs, the preset network
 742   configuration is actually a core definition feature of Skolelinux
 743   and not easy to change, so schools sometimes have to change their
 744   network configuration to make it "Skolelinux-compatible".
 745
 746   <li>Some proposed extensions, which were made available as
 747   contribution, like secure examination mode and lecture material
 748   distribution and collection, were not accepted into the mainline
 749   Skolelinux development and are now not easy to maintain in the
 750   future because of Skolelinux somewhat undeterministic update
 751   schemes.</li>
 752
 753   <li>Skolelinux has only a very tiny number of base developers
 754   compared to Debian.</li>
 755
 756 </ul>
 757
 758 <p>For these reasons and experience from our project, I would now
 759 rather consider using plain Debian for schools next time, until
 760 Skolelinux is more closely integrated into Debian and becomes
 761 upgradeable without reinstallation.</p>
 762
 763 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 764
 765 <p>GNU/Linux with LXDE desktop, bash for interactive dialog and
 766 programming, texlive for documentation and correspondence,
 767 occasionally LibreOffice for document format conversion. Various
 768 programming languages for teaching.</p>
 769
 770 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 771 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 772
 773 <p>Strong arguments are</p>
 774
 775 <ul>
 776
 777   <li>Knowledge is free, and so should be methods and tools for
 778     teaching and learning.</li>
 779
 780   <li>Students can learn with and use the same software at school, at
 781     home, and at their working place without running into license or
 782     conversion problems.</li>
 783
 784   <li>Closed source or proprietary software hides knowledge rather
 785     than exposing it, and proprietary software vendors try to bind
 786     customers to certain products.  But teachers need to teach
 787     science, not products.</li>
 788
 789   <li>If you have everything you for daily work as open source, what
 790     would you need proprietary software for?</li>
 791
 792 </ul>
 793
 794       </div>
 795       <div class="tags">
 796
 797
 798         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>.
 799
 800
 801       </div>
 802     </div>
 803     <div class="padding"></div>
 804
 805     <div class="entry">
 806       <div class="title">
 807         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnadsnett_for_alle__a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo__take_shape.html">Dugnadsnett for alle, a wireless community network in Oslo, take shape</a>
 808       </div>
 809       <div class="date">
 810         30th November 2013
 811       </div>
 812       <div class="body">
 813         <p>If you want the ability to electronically communicate directly with
 814 your neighbors and friends using a network controlled by your peers in
 815 stead of centrally controlled by a few corporations, or would like to
 816 experiment with interesting network technology, the
 817 <a href="http://www.dugnadsnett.no/">Dugnasnett for alle i Oslo</a>
 818 might be project for you.  39 mesh nodes are currently being planned,
 819 in the freshly started initiative from NUUG and Hackeriet to create a
 820 wireless community network.  The work is inspired by
 821 <a href="http://freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a>,
 822 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan
 823 Network</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roofnet">Roofnet</a>
 824 and other successful mesh networks around the globe.  Two days ago we
 825 held a workshop to try to get people started on setting up their own
 826 mesh node, and there we decided to create a new mailing list
 827 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/dugnadsnett">dugnadsnett
 828 (at) nuug.no</a> and IRC channel
 829 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#dugnadsnett.no">#dugnadsnett.no</a> to
 830 coordinate the work.  See also the NUUG blog post
 831 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/E_postliste_og_IRC_kanal_for_Dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">announcing
 832 the mailing list and IRC channel</a>.</p>
 833
 834       </div>
 835       <div class="tags">
 836
 837
 838         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 839
 840
 841       </div>
 842     </div>
 843     <div class="padding"></div>
 844
 845     <div class="entry">
 846       <div class="title">
 847         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
 848       </div>
 849       <div class="date">
 850         24th November 2013
 851       </div>
 852       <div class="body">
 853         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
 854 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
 855 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
 856 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
 857 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
 858 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
 859 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
 860 is working on.  I checked the
 861 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
 862 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
 863 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
 864 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
 865 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
 866 These are the release notes:</p>
 867
 868 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
 869
 870 <ul>
 871
 872   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
 873    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
 874    up.</li>
 875
 876   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
 877
 878   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
 879    Matthias Klose.</li>
 880
 881   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
 882    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
 883
 884   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
 885    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
 886    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
 887
 888 </ul>
 889
 890 <p>You can
 891 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
 892 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
 893 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
 894 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
 895 include a testsuite check.</p>
 896
 897       </div>
 898       <div class="tags">
 899
 900
 901         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 902
 903
 904       </div>
 905     </div>
 906     <div class="padding"></div>
 907
 908     <div class="entry">
 909       <div class="title">
 910         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/All_drones_should_be_radio_marked_with_what_they_do_and_who_they_belong_to.html">All drones should be radio marked with what they do and who they belong to</a>
 911       </div>
 912       <div class="date">
 913         21st November 2013
 914       </div>
 915       <div class="body">
 916         <p>Drones, flying robots, are getting more and more popular.  The most
 917 know ones are the killer drones used by some government to murder
 918 people they do not like without giving them the chance of a fair
 919 trial, but the technology have many good uses too, from mapping and
 920 forest maintenance to photography and search and rescue.  I am sure it
 921 is just a question of time before "bad drones" are in the hands of
 922 private enterprises and not only state criminals but petty criminals
 923 too.  The drone technology is very useful and very dangerous.  To have
 924 some control over the use of drones, I agree with Daniel Suarez in his
 925 TED talk
 926 "<a href="https://archive.org/details/DanielSuarez_2013G">The kill
 927 decision shouldn't belong to a robot</a>", where he suggested this
 928 little gem to keep the good while limiting the bad use of drones:</p>
 929
 930 <blockquote>
 931
 932 <p>Each robot and drone should have a cryptographically signed
 933 I.D. burned in at the factory that can be used to track its movement
 934 through public spaces. We have license plates on cars, tail numbers on
 935 aircraft. This is no different. And every citizen should be able to
 936 download an app that shows the population of drones and autonomous
 937 vehicles moving through public spaces around them, both right now and
 938 historically. And civic leaders should deploy sensors and civic drones
 939 to detect rogue drones, and instead of sending killer drones of their
 940 own up to shoot them down, they should notify humans to their
 941 presence. And in certain very high-security areas, perhaps civic
 942 drones would snare them and drag them off to a bomb disposal facility.</p>
 943
 944 <p>But notice, this is more an immune system than a weapons system. It
 945 would allow us to avail ourselves of the use of autonomous vehicles
 946 and drones while still preserving our open, civil society.</p>
 947
 948 </blockquote>
 949
 950 <p>The key is that <em>every citizen</em> should be able to read the
 951 radio beacons sent from the drones in the area, to be able to check
 952 both the government and others use of drones.  For such control to be
 953 effective, everyone must be able to do it.  What should such beacon
 954 contain?  At least formal owner, purpose, contact information and GPS
 955 location.  Probably also the origin and target position of the current
 956 flight.  And perhaps some registration number to be able to look up
 957 the drone in a central database tracking their movement.  Robots
 958 should not have privacy.  It is people who need privacy.</p>
 959
 960       </div>
 961       <div class="tags">
 962
 963
 964         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 965
 966
 967       </div>
 968     </div>
 969     <div class="padding"></div>
 970
 971     <div class="entry">
 972       <div class="title">
 973         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo_.html">Lets make a wireless community network in Oslo!</a>
 974       </div>
 975       <div class="date">
 976         13th November 2013
 977       </div>
 978       <div class="body">
 979         <p>Today NUUG and Hackeriet announced
 980 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Bli_med___bygge_dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">our
 981 plans to join forces and create a wireless community network in
 982 Oslo</a>.  The workshop to help people get started will take place
 983 Thursday 2013-11-28, but we already are collecting the geolocation of
 984 people joining forces to make this happen.  We have
 985 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/oslo-nodes.geojson">9
 986 locations plotted on the map</a>, but we will need more before we have
 987 a connected mesh spread across Oslo.  If this sound interesting to
 988 you, please join us at the workshop.  If you are too impatient to wait
 989 15 days, please join us on the IRC channel
 990 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
 991 right away. :)</p>
 992
 993       </div>
 994       <div class="tags">
 995
 996
 997         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 998
 999
1000       </div>
1001     </div>
1002     <div class="padding"></div>
1003
1004     <div class="entry">
1005       <div class="title">
1006         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Running_TP_Link_MR3040_as_a_batman_adv_mesh_node_using_openwrt.html">Running TP-Link MR3040 as a batman-adv mesh node using openwrt</a>
1007       </div>
1008       <div class="date">
1009         10th November 2013
1010       </div>
1011       <div class="body">
1012         <p>Continuing my research into mesh networking, I was recommended to
1013 use TP-Link 3040 and 3600 access points as mesh nodes, and the pair I
1014 bought arrived on Friday.  Here are my notes on how to set up the
1015 MR3040 as a mesh node using
1016 <a href="http://www.openwrt.org/">OpenWrt</a>.</p>
1017
1018 <p>I started by following the instructions on the OpenWRT wiki for
1019 <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3040">TL-MR3040</a>,
1020 and downloaded
1021 <a href="http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin">the
1022 recommended firmware image</a>
1023 (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) and
1024 uploaded it into the original web interface.  The flashing went fine,
1025 and the machine was available via telnet on the ethernet port.  After
1026 logging in and setting the root password, ssh was available and I
1027 could start to set it up as a batman-adv mesh node.</p>
1028
1029 <p>I started off by reading the instructions from
1030 <a href="http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php?title=Antoine's_Research">Wireless
1031 Africa</a>, which had quite a lot of useful information, but
1032 eventually I followed the recipe from the Open Mesh wiki for
1033 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Batman-adv-openwrt-config">using
1034 batman-adv on OpenWrt</a>.  A small snag was the fact that the
1035 <tt>opkg install kmod-batman-adv</tt> command did not work as it
1036 should.  The batman-adv kernel module would fail to load because its
1037 dependency crc16 was not already loaded.  I
1038 <a href="https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/14452">reported the bug</a> to
1039 the openwrt project and hope it will be fixed soon.  But the problem
1040 only seem to affect initial testing of batman-adv, as configuration
1041 seem to work when booting from scratch.</p>
1042
1043 <p>The setup is done using files in /etc/config/.  I did not bridge
1044 the Ethernet and mesh interfaces this time, to be able to hook up the
1045 box on my local network and log into it for configuration updates.
1046 The following files were changed and look like this after modifying
1047 them:</p>
1048
1049 <p><tt>/etc/config/network</tt></p>
1050
1051 <pre>
1052
1053 config interface 'loopback'
1054         option ifname 'lo'
1055         option proto 'static'
1056         option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
1057         option netmask '255.0.0.0'
1058
1059 config globals 'globals'
1060         option ula_prefix 'fdbf:4c12:3fed::/48'
1061
1062 config interface 'lan'
1063         option ifname 'eth0'
1064         option type 'bridge'
1065         option proto 'dhcp'
1066         option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
1067         option netmask '255.255.255.0'
1068         option hostname 'tl-mr3040'
1069         option ip6assign '60'
1070
1071 config interface 'mesh'
1072         option ifname 'adhoc0'
1073         option mtu '1528'
1074         option proto 'batadv'
1075         option mesh 'bat0'
1076 </pre>
1077
1078 <p><tt>/etc/config/wireless</tt></p>
1079 <pre>
1080
1081 config wifi-device 'radio0'
1082         option type 'mac80211'
1083         option channel '11'
1084         option hwmode '11ng'
1085         option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac'
1086         option htmode 'HT20'
1087         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-20'
1088         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-40'
1089         list ht_capab 'RX-STBC1'
1090         list ht_capab 'DSSS_CCK-40'
1091         option disabled '0'
1092
1093 config wifi-iface 'wmesh'
1094         option device 'radio0'
1095         option ifname 'adhoc0'
1096         option network 'mesh'
1097         option encryption 'none'
1098         option mode 'adhoc'
1099         option bssid '02:BA:00:00:00:01'
1100         option ssid 'meshfx@hackeriet'
1101 </pre>
1102 <p><tt>/etc/config/batman-adv</tt></p>
1103 <pre>
1104
1105 config 'mesh' 'bat0'
1106         option interfaces 'adhoc0'
1107         option 'aggregated_ogms'
1108         option 'ap_isolation'
1109         option 'bonding'
1110         option 'fragmentation'
1111         option 'gw_bandwidth'
1112         option 'gw_mode'
1113         option 'gw_sel_class'
1114         option 'log_level'
1115         option 'orig_interval'
1116         option 'vis_mode'
1117         option 'bridge_loop_avoidance'
1118         option 'distributed_arp_table'
1119         option 'network_coding'
1120         option 'hop_penalty'
1121
1122 # yet another batX instance
1123 # config 'mesh' 'bat5'
1124 #       option 'interfaces' 'second_mesh'
1125 </pre>
1126
1127 <p>The mesh node is now operational.  I have yet to test its range,
1128 but I hope it is good.  I have not yet tested the TP-Link 3600 box
1129 still wrapped up in plastic.</p>
1130
1131       </div>
1132       <div class="tags">
1133
1134
1135         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
1136
1137
1138       </div>
1139     </div>
1140     <div class="padding"></div>
1141
1142     <div class="entry">
1143       <div class="title">
1144         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
1145       </div>
1146       <div class="date">
1147          2nd November 2013
1148       </div>
1149       <div class="body">
1150         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
1151 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
1152 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
1153 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
1154 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
1155
1156 <p><pre>
1157 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
1158 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
1159 # Provides:          rsyslog
1160 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
1161 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
1162 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
1163 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
1164 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
1165 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
1166 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
1167 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
1168 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
1169 ### END INIT INFO
1170 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
1171 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
1172 </pre></p>
1173
1174 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
1175 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
1176 info/comments.</p>
1177
1178 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
1179 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
1180
1181 <p><pre>
1182 #!/bin/sh
1183
1184 # Define LSB log_* functions.
1185 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
1186 # and status_of_proc is working.
1187 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
1188
1189 #
1190 # Function that starts the daemon/service
1191
1192 #
1193 do_start()
1194 {
1195         # Return
1196         #   0 if daemon has been started
1197         #   1 if daemon was already running
1198         #   2 if daemon could not be started
1199         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
1200                 || return 1
1201         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
1202                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
1203                 || return 2
1204         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
1205         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
1206         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
1207 }
1208
1209 #
1210 # Function that stops the daemon/service
1211 #
1212 do_stop()
1213 {
1214         # Return
1215         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
1216         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
1217         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
1218         #   other if a failure occurred
1219         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1220         RETVAL="$?"
1221         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
1222         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
1223         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
1224         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
1225         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
1226         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
1227         # sleep for some time.
1228         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
1229         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
1230         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
1231         rm -f $PIDFILE
1232         return "$RETVAL"
1233 }
1234
1235 #
1236 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
1237 #
1238 do_reload() {
1239         #
1240         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
1241         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
1242         # then implement that here.
1243         #
1244         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1245         return 0
1246 }
1247
1248 SCRIPTNAME=$1
1249 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
1250 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
1251 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
1252     script="$1"
1253     shift
1254     . $script
1255 else
1256     exit 0
1257 fi
1258
1259 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
1260 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
1261
1262 # Exit if the package is not installed
1263 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
1264
1265 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
1266 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
1267
1268 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
1269 . /lib/init/vars.sh
1270
1271 case "$1" in
1272   start)
1273         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
1274         do_start
1275         case "$?" in
1276                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1277                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1278         esac
1279         ;;
1280   stop)
1281         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
1282         do_stop
1283         case "$?" in
1284                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1285                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1286         esac
1287         ;;
1288   status)
1289         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
1290         ;;
1291   #reload|force-reload)
1292         #
1293         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
1294         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
1295         #
1296         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
1297         #do_reload
1298         #log_end_msg $?
1299         #;;
1300   restart|force-reload)
1301         #
1302         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
1303         # 'force-reload' alias
1304         #
1305         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
1306         do_stop
1307         case "$?" in
1308           0|1)
1309                 do_start
1310                 case "$?" in
1311                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
1312                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
1313                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
1314                 esac
1315                 ;;
1316           *)
1317                 # Failed to stop
1318                 log_end_msg 1
1319                 ;;
1320         esac
1321         ;;
1322   *)
1323         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
1324         exit 3
1325         ;;
1326 esac
1327
1328 :
1329 </pre></p>
1330
1331 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
1332 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
1333 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
1334 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
1335
1336 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
1337 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
1338 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
1339 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
1340 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
1341
1342       </div>
1343       <div class="tags">
1344
1345
1346         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>.
1347
1348
1349       </div>
1350     </div>
1351     <div class="padding"></div>
1352
1353     <div class="entry">
1354       <div class="title">
1355         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
1356       </div>
1357       <div class="date">
1358          1st November 2013
1359       </div>
1360       <div class="body">
1361         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
1362 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
1363 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
1364 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
1365 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
1366 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
1367 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
1368 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
1369 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
1370 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
1371 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
1372 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
1373
1374 <p>The source is now available from
1375 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
1376
1377       </div>
1378       <div class="tags">
1379
1380
1381         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>.
1382
1383
1384       </div>
1385     </div>
1386     <div class="padding"></div>
1387
1388     <div class="entry">
1389       <div class="title">
1390         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
1391       </div>
1392       <div class="date">
1393         27th October 2013
1394       </div>
1395       <div class="body">
1396         <p>The
1397 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
1398 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
1399 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
1400 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
1401 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
1402 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
1403 of a plan to simplify the build system for
1404 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
1405 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
1406 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
1407 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
1408 Raspberry Pi.</p>
1409
1410 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
1411 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
1412 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
1413 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
1414 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
1415 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
1416 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
1417 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
1418 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
1419 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
1420 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
1421 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
1422 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
1423 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
1424 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
1425 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
1426 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
1427 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
1428 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
1429 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
1430 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
1431 available from
1432 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
1433 upstream project page</a>.</p>
1434
1435 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
1436 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
1437 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
1438 list:</p>
1439
1440 <p><pre>
1441 #!/bin/sh
1442 set -e # Exit on first error
1443 rootdir="$1"
1444 cd "$rootdir"
1445 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
1446 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
1447 EOF
1448 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
1449 # install a kernel somewhere too.
1450 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
1451     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1452 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1453 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
1454 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
1455 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
1456 </pre></p>
1457
1458 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
1459 to build the image:</p>
1460
1461 <pre>
1462 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
1463     --variant minbase \
1464     --arch armel \
1465     --distribution jessie \
1466     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
1467     --image test.img \
1468     --size 600M \
1469     --bootsize 64M \
1470     --boottype vfat \
1471     --log-level debug \
1472     --verbose \
1473     --no-kernel \
1474     --no-extlinux \
1475     --root-password raspberry \
1476     --hostname raspberrypi \
1477     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
1478     --customize `pwd`/customize \
1479     --package netbase \
1480     --package git-core \
1481     --package binutils \
1482     --package ca-certificates \
1483     --package wget \
1484     --package kmod
1485 </pre></p>
1486
1487 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
1488 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
1489 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
1490 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
1491 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
1492 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
1493 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
1494
1495 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
1496 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
1497 build dependency list.</p>
1498
1499 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
1500 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
1501 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
1502 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
1503
1504       </div>
1505       <div class="tags">
1506
1507
1508         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
1509
1510
1511       </div>
1512     </div>
1513     <div class="padding"></div>
1514
1515     <div class="entry">
1516       <div class="title">
1517         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node</a>
1518       </div>
1519       <div class="date">
1520         21st October 2013
1521       </div>
1522       <div class="body">
1523         <p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
1524 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
1525 batman-adv mesh technology</a>.  I want to gain some experience to see
1526 if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
1527 Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
1528 mesh network around the park where I live.  Batman-adv is a layer 2
1529 mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear
1530 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.</p>
1531
1532 <p>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
1533 around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv.  So
1534 instead, I started playing with a
1535 <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>, and tried to
1536 get it working as a mesh node.  My idea is to use it to create a mesh
1537 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
1538 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
1539 network.  This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
1540 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
1541 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh.  This in turn is useful for
1542 Android phones using <a href="http://servalproject.org/">the Serval
1543 Project</a> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
1544 phone and message each other for free.  The reason is that Android
1545 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
1546 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted.  But if
1547 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
1548 every client on the local network.</p>
1549
1550 <p>To get this working, I've created a debian package
1551 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node">meshfx-node</a>
1552 and a script
1553 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node">build-rpi-mesh-node</a>
1554 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image.  I'm using Debian Jessie (and
1555 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
1556 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
1557 image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now.  Also, as
1558 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
1559 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit.  I hope
1560 the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
1561 support.</p>
1562
1563 <p>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
1564 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:</p>
1565
1566 <p><pre>
1567 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
1568     https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
1569 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
1570 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
1571 %
1572 </pre></p>
1573
1574 <p>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
1575 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node.  At least it does for
1576 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
1577 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
1578 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">an
1579 earlier blog post about this mesh testing</a>.</p>
1580
1581 <p>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either.  I bought
1582 everything over the counter in shops nearby.  If I had ordered online
1583 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:</p>
1584
1585 <p><table>
1586
1587 <tr><th>Supplier</th><th>Model</th><th>NOK</th></tr>
1588 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi model B</td><td>349.90</td></tr>
1589 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi type B case</td><td>99.90</td></tr>
1590 <tr><td>Lefdal</td><td>Jensen Air:Link 25150</td><td>295.-</td></tr>
1591 <tr><td>Clas Ohlson</td><td>Kingston 16 GB SD card</td><td>199.-</td></tr>
1592 <tr><td>Total cost</td><td></td><td>943.80</td></tr>
1593
1594 </table></p>
1595
1596 <p>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
1597 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th
1598 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
1599 play-node I use to develop the image building script.  And some times
1600 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it.  I look forward
1601 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
1602 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)</p>
1603
1604       </div>
1605       <div class="tags">
1606
1607
1608         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
1609
1610
1611       </div>
1612     </div>
1613     <div class="padding"></div>
1614
1615     <div class="entry">
1616       <div class="title">
1617         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html">Perl library to control the Spykee robot moved to github</a>
1618       </div>
1619       <div class="date">
1620         19th October 2013
1621       </div>
1622       <div class="body">
1623         <p>Back in 2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
1624 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee">the Spykee robot</a>
1625 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
1626 web page.  Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
1627 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github.  If
1628 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
1629 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl">the
1630 libspykee-perl github repository</a>.</p>
1631
1632       </div>
1633       <div class="tags">
1634
1635
1636         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>.
1637
1638
1639       </div>
1640     </div>
1641     <div class="padding"></div>
1642
1643     <div class="entry">
1644       <div class="title">
1645         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
1646       </div>
1647       <div class="date">
1648         15th October 2013
1649       </div>
1650       <div class="body">
1651         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
1652 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
1653 these. :)</p>
1654
1655 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
1656 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
1657 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
1658 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
1659 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
1660 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
1661 hope you will to. :)</p>
1662
1663 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
1664 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
1665 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
1666 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
1667 donated.  Are you next?</p>
1668
1669 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
1670 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
1671 statement under the heading
1672 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
1673 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
1674 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
1675 too.</p>
1676
1677       </div>
1678       <div class="tags">
1679
1680
1681         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1682
1683
1684       </div>
1685     </div>
1686     <div class="padding"></div>
1687
1688     <div class="entry">
1689       <div class="title">
1690         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania</a>
1691       </div>
1692       <div class="date">
1693         11th October 2013
1694       </div>
1695       <div class="body">
1696         <p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
1697 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
1698 areas, depending on the radio technology used.  Normal wifi equipment
1699 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
1700 successful examples like
1701 <a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
1702 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
1703 (see
1704 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
1705 for a large list</a>) around the globe.  To give you an idea how it
1706 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
1707 can be seen from their
1708 <a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
1709 updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
1710 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
1711 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
1712 and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
1713
1714 <p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
1715 to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
1716 href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
1717 my recent involvement in
1718 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
1719 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
1720 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
1721 when possible, given that most communication between people are
1722 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
1723 communication patterns).  It also allow people to communicate without
1724 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
1725 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
1726 important over the years.</p>
1727
1728 <p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
1729 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
1730 <a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania.  They seem to
1731 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
1732 <a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
1733 Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
1734 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
1735 <a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>.  Unfortunately the wiki
1736 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
1737 reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
1738 the new project.  A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
1739 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks.  I
1740 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
1741 speakers about this talk (from
1742 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
1743
1744 <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
1745
1746 <p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
1747 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
1748 figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
1749 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
1750 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
1751 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
1752 batman-adv for now.  It sure help me to  know that the very cool
1753 <a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
1754 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
1755 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
1756 less industrialized communities.  Check out this cool video presenting
1757 that project (from
1758 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
1759
1760 <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
1761
1762 <p>According to the wikipedia page on
1763 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
1764 mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
1765 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
1766 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
1767 based community mesh networks.</p>
1768
1769 <p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
1770 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
1771 network.  One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
1772 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
1773 computer.  The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
1774 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up.  A
1775 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
1776 introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project.  These are
1777 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
1778
1779 <p><table>
1780 <tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
1781 <tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
1782 <tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
1783 <td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
1784 <td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
1785 </table></p>
1786
1787 <p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
1788 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers.  (See a nice post from
1789 VillageTelco about
1790 "<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
1791 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
1792 for details.)  When these settings are activated and you have some
1793 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
1794 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
1795 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
1796
1797 <p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
1798 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
1799 firmware supporting batman-adv.  If anyone know how to use that old
1800 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
1801
1802 <p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
1803 us on IRC, either channel
1804 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
1805 or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
1806 irc.freenode.net.</p>
1807
1808 <p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
1809 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
1810 and Innovation called
1811 <a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
1812 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
1813 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
1814 Grünerløkka in Oslo.  So mesh networks are also interesting for
1815 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
1816 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
1817 know have closed down the experiment.  Perhaps Telenor or others would
1818 be interested in a cooperation?</p>
1819
1820 <p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
1821 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
1822 by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
1823 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
1824 mesh system.</p>
1825
1826       </div>
1827       <div class="tags">
1828
1829
1830         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
1831
1832
1833       </div>
1834     </div>
1835     <div class="padding"></div>
1836
1837     <div class="entry">
1838       <div class="title">
1839         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_7_1_install_and_overview_video_from_Marcelo_Salvador.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu 7.1 install and overview video from Marcelo Salvador</a>
1840       </div>
1841       <div class="date">
1842          8th October 2013
1843       </div>
1844       <div class="body">
1845         <p>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
1846 Salvador had published a
1847 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc">video on
1848 Youtube</a> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
1849 Skolelinux profile.  This is the profile intended for use at home or
1850 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
1851 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
1852 in other word a single user machine).  The result is 11 minutes long,
1853 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
1854 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
1855 showing the <a href="http://www.zygotebody.com/">Zygote Body 3D model
1856 of the human body</a>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
1857 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
1858 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
1859 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
1860 computers without hard drives by installing one central
1861 <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP server</a>.</p>
1862
1863 <p>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:</p>
1864
1865 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
1866
1867 <p>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux?  Please let
1868 me know. :)</p>
1869
1870       </div>
1871       <div class="tags">
1872
1873
1874         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>.
1875
1876
1877       </div>
1878     </div>
1879     <div class="padding"></div>
1880
1881     <div class="entry">
1882       <div class="title">
1883         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html">Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!</a>
1884       </div>
1885       <div class="date">
1886         29th September 2013
1887       </div>
1888       <div class="body">
1889         <p>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
1890 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team.  The
1891 complete announcement text can be found at
1892 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130928">the Debian News
1893 section</a>, translated to several languages.  Please check it out.</p>
1894
1895 <p>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon.  One
1896 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
1897 partition is too small.  A workaround is to extend the partition (use
1898 lvresize + resize2fs in tty 2 while installing).</p>
1899
1900       </div>
1901       <div class="tags">
1902
1903
1904         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>.
1905
1906
1907       </div>
1908     </div>
1909     <div class="padding"></div>
1910
1911     <div class="entry">
1912       <div class="title">
1913         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
1914       </div>
1915       <div class="date">
1916         27th September 2013
1917       </div>
1918       <div class="body">
1919         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
1920 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
1921 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
1922 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
1923
1924 <ul>
1925
1926 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
1927 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
1928
1929 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
1930 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
1931
1932 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
1933 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
1934 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
1935 (Youtube)</li>
1936
1937 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
1938 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
1939
1940 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
1941 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
1942
1943 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
1944 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
1945 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
1946
1947 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
1948 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
1949 (Youtube)</li>
1950
1951 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
1952 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
1953
1954 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
1955 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
1956
1957 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
1958 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
1959 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
1960
1961 </ul>
1962
1963 <p>A larger list is available from
1964 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
1965 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
1966
1967 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
1968 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
1969 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
1970 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
1971 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
1972 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
1973 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
1974 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
1975 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
1976 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1977 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1978
1979       </div>
1980       <div class="tags">
1981
1982
1983         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1984
1985
1986       </div>
1987     </div>
1988     <div class="padding"></div>
1989
1990     <div class="entry">
1991       <div class="title">
1992         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_and_probably_last_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Wheezy.html">Third and probably last beta release of Debian Edu Wheezy</a>
1993       </div>
1994       <div class="date">
1995         16th September 2013
1996       </div>
1997       <div class="body">
1998         <p>The third wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
1999 today.  This is the release announcement from Holger Levsen:</p>
2000
2001 <blockquote>
2002 <p>Hi,</p>
2003
2004 <p>it is my pleasure to announce the third beta release (beta 2 for
2005 short) of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2006 Skolelinux</a> based on Debian Wheezy!</p>
2007
2008 <p>Please test these images extensivly, if no new problems are found
2009 we plan to do this final Debian Edu Wheezy release this coming
2010 weekend.  We are not aware of any major problems or blockers in beta2,
2011 if you find something, please notify us immediately!</p>
2012
2013 <p>(More about the remaining steps for the Edu Wheezy release in
2014 another mail to the edu list tonight or tomorrow...)</p>
2015
2016 <p>Noteworthy changes and software updates for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b2
2017 compared to beta1:</p>
2018
2019 <ul>
2020
2021 <li>The KDE proxy setup has been adjusted to use the provided wpad.dat. This
2022 also gets Chromium to use this proxy.</li>
2023 <li>Install kdepim-groupware with KDE desktops to make sure korganizer
2024 understand ical/dav sources.</li>
2025 <li>Increased default maximum size of /var/spool/squid and /skole/backup on the
2026 main server.</li>
2027 <li>A source DVD image containing all source packages is now available as well.</li>
2028 <li>Updates for chromium (29.0.1547.57-1~deb7u1), imagemagick
2029 (6.7.7.10-5+deb7u2), php5 (5.4.4-14+deb7u4), libmodplug
2030 (0.8.8.4-3+deb7u1+git20130828), tiff (4.0.2-6+deb7u2), linux-image
2031 (3.2.0-4-486_3.2.46-1+deb7u1).</li>
2032
2033 </ul>
2034
2035 <p>Where to get it:</p>
2036
2037 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2038
2039 <ul>
2040 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
2041 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
2042 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso .</li>
2043 </ul>
2044
2045 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is:  3a1c89f4666df80eebcd46c5bf5fedb866f9472f</p>
2046
2047 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
2048 <ul>
2049 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
2050 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
2051 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso .</li>
2052 </ul>
2053
2054 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 702d1718548f401c74bfa6df9f032cc3ee16597e</p>
2055
2056 <p>The Source DVD image has the filename
2057 debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-source-DVD.iso and the SHA1SUM
2058 089eed8b3f962db47aae1f6a9685e9bb2fa30ca5 and is available the same way
2059 as the other isos.</p>
2060
2061 <p>How to report bugs</p>
2062
2063 <p>For information how to report bugs please see
2064 <br><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
2065
2066
2067 <p>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</p>
2068
2069 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
2070 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
2071 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
2072 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
2073 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
2074 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
2075 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
2076 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
2077 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
2078 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
2079 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
2080 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
2081 can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
2082
2083 <p>This is the seventh test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
2084 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
2085 Squeeze release.</p>
2086
2087 <p>Notes for upgrades from Alpha Prereleases</p>
2088
2089 <p>Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
2090 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
2091 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
2092 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
2093 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined on the mailing list. (2)
2094 Accept the new version of gosa.conf and replace both contained admin
2095 password placeholders with the password hashes found in the old one
2096 (backup copy!). In both cases all users need to change their password
2097 to make sure a password is set for CIFS access to their home
2098 directory.</p>
2099
2100
2101 <p>cheers,
2102 <br>        Holger</p>
2103 </blockquote>
2104
2105       </div>
2106       <div class="tags">
2107
2108
2109         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>.
2110
2111
2112       </div>
2113     </div>
2114     <div class="padding"></div>
2115
2116     <div class="entry">
2117       <div class="title">
2118         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
2119       </div>
2120       <div class="date">
2121         10th September 2013
2122       </div>
2123       <div class="body">
2124         <p>I was introduced to the
2125 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
2126 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2127 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2128 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
2129 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2130 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
2131 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2132 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
2133
2134 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2135 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2136 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
2137 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2138 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
2139
2140 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
2141 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2142 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2143 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2144 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
2145 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
2146 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
2147 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2148 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2149 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2150 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2151 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2152 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2153 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2154 missing in Debian).</p>
2155
2156 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2157 scripts
2158 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
2159 and a administrative web interface
2160 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
2161 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2162 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
2163 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2164 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
2165 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2166 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
2167 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2168 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
2169 this is really working yet, see
2170 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
2171 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
2172 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2173 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2174 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2175 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2176 with lots of half baked features.</p>
2177
2178 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2179 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2180 at.</p>
2181
2182 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
2183
2184 <ol>
2185
2186 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
2187 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
2188 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2189 to the Debian installer:<p>
2190 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
2191
2192 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2193 install on.</li>
2194
2195 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2196 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
2197
2198 </ol>
2199
2200 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
2201
2202 <ol>
2203
2204 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
2205 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
2206 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
2207 <pre>
2208 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
2209 </pre></li>
2210 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
2211 <pre>
2212 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2213    apt-key add -
2214 apt-get update
2215 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2216 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2217 </pre></li>
2218 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
2219
2220 </ol>
2221
2222 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2223 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2224 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2225 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
2226 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
2227
2228 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2229 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2230 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2231 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
2232
2233 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2234 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
2235 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
2236 irc.debian.org and the
2237 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
2238 mailing list</a>.</p>
2239
2240 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2241 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
2242 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2243 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
2244 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
2245 default password is 'secret'.</p>
2246
2247       </div>
2248       <div class="tags">
2249
2250
2251         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2252
2253
2254       </div>
2255     </div>
2256     <div class="padding"></div>
2257
2258     <div class="entry">
2259       <div class="title">
2260         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_release__beta_1__of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second beta release (beta 1) of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
2261       </div>
2262       <div class="date">
2263         22nd August 2013
2264       </div>
2265       <div class="body">
2266         <p>The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
2267 today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
2268 integration fixes .  This is the release announcement:</p>
2269
2270 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22</strong></p>
2271
2272 <p>These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2273 7.1+edu0~b1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
2274
2275 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2276
2277 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
2278 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
2279 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
2280 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
2281 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
2282 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
2283 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
2284 the main server from CD or USB stick all other machines can be
2285 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
2286 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
2287 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
2288 desktop contains
2289 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
2290 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
2291 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
2292 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
2293
2294 <p>This is the sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
2295 is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
2296 release.</p>
2297
2298 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
2299 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
2300 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
2301 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
2302 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
2303 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/08/msg00127.html">on
2304 the mailing list</a>. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
2305 replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
2306 hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
2307 need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
2308 CIFS access to their home directory.</p>
2309
2310 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2311
2312 <ul>
2313
2314 <li>Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
2315     work also without a attached tty.</li>
2316 <li>Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
2317     make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
2318     tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
2319     has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
2320     required).</li>
2321
2322 </ul>
2323
2324 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
2325
2326 <ul>
2327
2328 <li>Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
2329 needed for desktop=xfce installations.</li>
2330 <li>Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
2331 stick ISO image.</li>
2332 <li>Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).</li>
2333 <li>Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.</li>
2334 <li>Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
2335     during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
2336     cope with this.</li>
2337 <li>Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².</li>
2338 <li>Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
2339     empty password hashes.</li>
2340 <li>Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
2341     smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
2342     from joining the Samba domain.</li>
2343
2344 </ul>
2345
2346 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
2347
2348 <ul>
2349
2350 <li>KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
2351     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
2352 <li>Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
2353     (using the KDE configuration).</li>
2354
2355 </ul>
2356
2357 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
2358
2359 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2360
2361 <ul>
2362
2363 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
2364
2365 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
2366
2367 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso .</li>
2368
2369 </ul>
2370
2371 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
2372 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2</p>
2373
2374 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
2375
2376 <ul>
2377
2378 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
2379 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
2380 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso .</li>
2381
2382 </ul>
2383
2384 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
2385 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119</p>
2386
2387
2388 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
2389
2390 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
2391
2392       </div>
2393       <div class="tags">
2394
2395
2396         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>.
2397
2398
2399       </div>
2400     </div>
2401     <div class="padding"></div>
2402
2403     <div class="entry">
2404       <div class="title">
2405         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
2406       </div>
2407       <div class="date">
2408         18th August 2013
2409       </div>
2410       <div class="body">
2411         <p>Earlier, I reported about
2412 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
2413 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
2414 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
2415 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2416 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2417 currently on the disk.</p>
2418
2419 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2420 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
2421 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2422 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2423 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2424 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
2425 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2426 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
2427 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2428 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
2429 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
2430 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2431 the broken disks.</p>
2432
2433       </div>
2434       <div class="tags">
2435
2436
2437         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>.
2438
2439
2440       </div>
2441     </div>
2442     <div class="padding"></div>
2443
2444     <div class="entry">
2445       <div class="title">
2446         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/90_percent_done_with_the_Norwegian_draft_translation_of_Free_Culture.html">90 percent done with the Norwegian draft translation of Free Culture</a>
2447       </div>
2448       <div class="date">
2449          2nd August 2013
2450       </div>
2451       <div class="body">
2452         <p>It has been a while since my last update.  Since last summer, I
2453 have worked on a Norwegian
2454 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
2455 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
2456 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright
2457 law.  Yesterday, I finally broken the 90% mark, when counting the
2458 number of strings to translate.  Due to real life constraints, I have
2459 not had time to work on it since March, but when the summer broke out,
2460 I found time to work on it again.  Still lots of work left, but the
2461 first draft is nearing completion.  I created a graph to show the
2462 progress of the translation:</p>
2463
2464 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
2465
2466 <p>When the first draft is done, the translated text need to be
2467 proof read, and the remaining formatting problems with images and SVG
2468 drawings need to be fixed.  There are probably also some index entries
2469 missing that need to be added.  This can be done by comparing the
2470 index entries listed in the SiSU version of the book, or comparing the
2471 English docbook version with the paper version.  Last, the colophon
2472 page with ISBN numbers etc need to be wrapped up before the release is
2473 done.  I should also figure out how to get correct Norwegian sorting
2474 of the index pages.  All docbook tools I have tried so far (xmlto,
2475 docbook-xsl, dblatex) get the order of symbols and the special
2476 Norwegian letters ÆØÅ wrong.</p>
2477
2478 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
2479 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
2480 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
2481 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
2482 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
2483 around?  There are also some legal terms that are unfamiliar to me.
2484 If you want to help, please get in touch with me, and check out the
2485 project files currently available from
2486 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
2487
2488 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
2489 the updated
2490 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
2491 and
2492 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
2493 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
2494 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
2495 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
2496
2497       </div>
2498       <div class="tags">
2499
2500
2501         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>.
2502
2503
2504       </div>
2505     </div>
2506     <div class="padding"></div>
2507
2508     <div class="entry">
2509       <div class="title">
2510         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First beta release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
2511       </div>
2512       <div class="date">
2513         27th July 2013
2514       </div>
2515       <div class="body">
2516         <p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
2517 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
2518
2519 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released
2520 2013-07-27</strong></p>
2521
2522 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2523 7.1+edu0~b0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
2524
2525 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2526
2527 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
2528 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
2529 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
2530 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
2531 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
2532 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
2533 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
2534 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
2535 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
2536 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
2537 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
2538 desktop contains
2539 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
2540 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
2541 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
2542 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
2543
2544 <p>This is the fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
2545 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
2546 Squeeze release.</p>
2547
2548 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
2549 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
2550 release.</p>
2551
2552 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2553
2554 <ul>
2555
2556 <li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager
2557    for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li>
2558 <li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser
2559    packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced
2560    by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those
2561    installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa
2562    and libpam-mklocaluser.</li>
2563 <li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li>
2564 <li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li>
2565 <li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of
2566    crash bugs.</li>
2567
2568 </ul>
2569
2570 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
2571
2572 <ul>
2573
2574 <li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break
2575    desktop=gnome installations.</li>
2576 <li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the
2577    netinst CD.</li>
2578 <li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific
2579    setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li>
2580 <li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at
2581    install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash
2582    with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li>
2583 <li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient
2584    exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host
2585    name setting at run time to work again.</li>
2586 <li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL
2587    fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by
2588    updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li>
2589 <li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique
2590    (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li>
2591 <li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li>
2592
2593 </ul>
2594
2595 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
2596
2597 <ul>
2598
2599 <li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li>
2600 <li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
2601     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
2602 <li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</li>
2603
2604 </ul>
2605
2606 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
2607
2608 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2609
2610 <ul>
2611
2612 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
2613
2614 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
2615
2616 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li>
2617
2618 </ul>
2619
2620 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109
2621 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</p>
2622
2623 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
2624
2625 <ul>
2626
2627 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
2628 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
2629 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li>
2630
2631 </ul>
2632
2633 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69
2634 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</p>
2635
2636
2637 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
2638
2639 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
2640
2641       </div>
2642       <div class="tags">
2643
2644
2645         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>.
2646
2647
2648       </div>
2649     </div>
2650     <div class="padding"></div>
2651
2652     <div class="entry">
2653       <div class="title">
2654         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
2655       </div>
2656       <div class="date">
2657         17th July 2013
2658       </div>
2659       <div class="body">
2660         <p>Today I switched to
2661 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
2662 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
2663 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2664 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
2665 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
2666 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2667 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2668 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2669 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
2670 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2671 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2672 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2673 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2674 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2675 station from now on.</p>
2676
2677 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2678 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2679 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
2680 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2681 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2682 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
2683 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
2684 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
2685 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2686 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2687 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2688 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
2689
2690 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2691 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
2692 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2693 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2694 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
2695 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
2696 parameters are tuned:</p>
2697
2698 <ul>
2699
2700 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2701     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
2702
2703 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2704     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2705     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
2706
2707 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2708     systems.</li>
2709
2710 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
2711     /etc/fstab.</li>
2712
2713 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
2714
2715 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2716     cron.daily).</li>
2717
2718 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2719     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
2720
2721 </ul>
2722
2723 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2724 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2725 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2726 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2727 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2728 from getting the data on the disk (see
2729 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
2730 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2731 right thing to do.</p>
2732
2733 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2734 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2735 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
2736
2737 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
2738 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2739 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2740 instead of during my work.</p>
2741
2742 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2743 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
2744
2745 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
2746 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2747 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
2748
2749 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2750 there.</p>
2751
2752 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2753 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2754 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2755 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2756 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2757 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2758 back.</p>
2759
2760       </div>
2761       <div class="tags">
2762
2763
2764         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>.
2765
2766
2767       </div>
2768     </div>
2769     <div class="padding"></div>
2770
2771     <div class="entry">
2772       <div class="title">
2773         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
2774       </div>
2775       <div class="date">
2776         10th July 2013
2777       </div>
2778       <div class="body">
2779         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
2780 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
2781 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
2782 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2783 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
2784 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
2785 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
2786 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
2787
2788 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2789 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
2790 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
2791 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2792 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2793 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
2794 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
2795 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
2796 lock up when I download a new
2797 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
2798 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2799 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
2800
2801 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2802 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
2803 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2804 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
2805 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2806 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2807
2808 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2809 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
2810 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2811 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
2812 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2813 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2814
2815 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
2816 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
2817 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
2818 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
2819 exist).</p>
2820
2821       </div>
2822       <div class="tags">
2823
2824
2825         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>.
2826
2827
2828       </div>
2829     </div>
2830     <div class="padding"></div>
2831
2832     <div class="entry">
2833       <div class="title">
2834         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
2835       </div>
2836       <div class="date">
2837          9th July 2013
2838       </div>
2839       <div class="body">
2840         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
2841 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
2842 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
2843 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
2844 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2845 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
2846 Bitraf</a>.</p>
2847
2848 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
2849 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
2850 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
2851 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
2852 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
2853
2854       </div>
2855       <div class="tags">
2856
2857
2858         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>.
2859
2860
2861       </div>
2862     </div>
2863     <div class="padding"></div>
2864
2865     <div class="entry">
2866       <div class="title">
2867         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
2868       </div>
2869       <div class="date">
2870          5th July 2013
2871       </div>
2872       <div class="body">
2873         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
2874 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
2875 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
2876 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
2877 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
2878 ended up picking a
2879 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
2880 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
2881 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
2882 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
2883 on that below.</p>
2884
2885 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2886 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2887 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2888 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2889 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2890 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
2891 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
2892 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
2893 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
2894
2895 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
2896 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
2897 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
2898 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
2899 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
2900 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
2901 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
2902
2903 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
2904 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
2905
2906 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
2907 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
2908 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
2909 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
2910 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
2911 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
2912 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
2913 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
2914 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
2915 kernel developers as
2916 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
2917 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
2918 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
2919 Lenovo forums, both for
2920 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
2921 2012-11-10</a> and for
2922 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
2923 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
2924 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
2925 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
2926 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
2927 There is even a
2928 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
2929 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
2930 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
2931
2932 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
2933 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
2934 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
2935 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
2936 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
2937 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
2938 fixed. :)</p>
2939
2940       </div>
2941       <div class="tags">
2942
2943
2944         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>.
2945
2946
2947       </div>
2948     </div>
2949     <div class="padding"></div>
2950
2951     <div class="entry">
2952       <div class="title">
2953         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
2954       </div>
2955       <div class="date">
2956          4th July 2013
2957       </div>
2958       <div class="body">
2959         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
2960 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
2961 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
2962 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
2963 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
2964 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
2965 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
2966 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
2967 with an expencive door stop.</p>
2968
2969 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2970 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2971 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2972 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2973 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2974 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
2975 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
2976
2977 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
2978 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
2979 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
2980 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
2981 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
2982 new laptop now. :)</p>
2983
2984 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
2985
2986       </div>
2987       <div class="tags">
2988
2989
2990         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>.
2991
2992
2993       </div>
2994     </div>
2995     <div class="padding"></div>
2996
2997     <div class="entry">
2998       <div class="title">
2999         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fourth_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Fourth alpha release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
3000       </div>
3001       <div class="date">
3002          3rd July 2013
3003       </div>
3004       <div class="body">
3005         <p>The fourth wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
3006 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
3007
3008 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~alpha3 released
3009 2013-07-03</strong></p>
3010
3011 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3012 7.1+edu0~alpha3, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
3013
3014 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
3015
3016 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
3017 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
3018 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
3019 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
3020 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
3021 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
3022 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
3023 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
3024 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
3025 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
3026 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
3027 desktop contains
3028 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
3029 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
3030 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
3031 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
3032
3033 <p>This is the fourth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
3034 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
3035 Squeeze release.</p>
3036
3037 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
3038 <ul>
3039   <li>Dropped ispell dictionaries from our default installation.</li>
3040   <li>Dropped menu-xdg from the KDE desktop option, to drop the Debian
3041     submenu.  It was not included with Gnome, LXDE or Xfce, so this
3042     brings KDE in line with the others.</li>
3043   <li>Dropped xdrawchem, xjig and xsok from our default installation as
3044     they don't have a desktop menu entry and thus won't show up in the
3045     menu now that menu-xdg was removed.</li>
3046   <li>Removed the killer system to kill left behind processes on
3047     multi-user machines, as it was no longer able to understand when a
3048     X display was in use and killed the processes of the active users
3049     too.</li>
3050   <li>Dropped the golearn (from goplay) package as the debtags in wheezy
3051     are too few to make the package useful.</li>
3052 </ul>
3053 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
3054 <ul>
3055   <li>Updated artwork matching http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Joy
3056   <li>Multi-arch i386/amd64 USB stick ISO available.</li>
3057   <li>Got rid of ispell/wordlist related debconf questions that showed
3058     up for some language options.</li>
3059   <li>Switched to using http.debian.net as APT source by default.</li>
3060   <li>Fixed proxy configuration on Main Server installations.</li>
3061   <li>Changed LTSP setup to ask dpkg to use force-unsafe-io the same way
3062     d-i is doing it.</li>
3063   <li>Made sure root and user passwords were not left behind in the
3064     debconf database after installation on Main Server installations.</li>
3065   <li>Made Roaming Workstation dynamic setup more robust and added draft
3066     script setup-ad-client to hook a Roaming Workstation up to a
3067     Active Directory server instead of a Debian Edu Main Server.</li>
3068   <li>Update system to install needed firmware packages during
3069     installation, to work properly in Wheezy.</li>
3070   <li>Update system to handle hardware quirks (debian-edu-hwsetup).</li>
3071   <li>Corrected PXE installation setup to properly pass selected desktop
3072     and keymap settings to PXE installation clients.</li>
3073   <li>LTSP diskless workstations use sshfs by default, allowing them to
3074     work without adding them to DNS and NIS netgroups for NFS access.</li>
3075 </ul>
3076 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
3077 <ul>
3078   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
3079     available yet (698840).</li>
3080   <li>Artwork not enabled for all desktops.</li>
3081 </ul>
3082 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
3083
3084 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
3085 <ul>
3086   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
3087   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
3088   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso .</li>
3089 </ul>
3090
3091 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 2b161a99d2a848c376d8d04e3854e30c
3092 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 498922e9c508c0a7ee9dbe1dfe5bf830d779c3c8</p>
3093
3094 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
3095 <ul>
3096   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
3097   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
3098   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso .</li>
3099 </ul>
3100
3101 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 25e808e403a4c15dbef1d13c37d572ac
3102 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 15ecfc93eb6b4f453b7eb0bc04b6a279262d9721</p>
3103
3104 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
3105
3106 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
3107
3108       </div>
3109       <div class="tags">
3110
3111
3112         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>.
3113
3114
3115       </div>
3116     </div>
3117     <div class="padding"></div>
3118
3119     <div class="entry">
3120       <div class="title">
3121         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
3122       </div>
3123       <div class="date">
3124         25th June 2013
3125       </div>
3126       <div class="body">
3127         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
3128 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
3129 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
3130 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
3131 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
3132 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
3133 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
3134 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
3135 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
3136 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
3137 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
3138
3139 <p><pre>
3140 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3141 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
3142 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
3143 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
3144 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
3145 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
3146 firmware-ipw2x00
3147 firmware-ipw2x00
3148 Preconfiguring packages ...
3149 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
3150 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
3151 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
3152 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
3153 #
3154 </pre></p>
3155
3156 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
3157 printed instead:</p>
3158
3159 <p><pre>
3160 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3161 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
3162 #
3163 </pre></p>
3164
3165 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
3166 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
3167
3168 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
3169 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
3170 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
3171 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
3172 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
3173 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
3174 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
3175 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
3176 machine.</p>
3177
3178 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
3179 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
3180 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
3181 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
3182 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
3183 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
3184
3185       </div>
3186       <div class="tags">
3187
3188
3189         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>.
3190
3191
3192       </div>
3193     </div>
3194     <div class="padding"></div>
3195
3196     <div class="entry">
3197       <div class="title">
3198         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_value_of_a_good_distro_wide_test_suite___.html">The value of a good distro wide test suite...</a>
3199       </div>
3200       <div class="date">
3201         22nd June 2013
3202       </div>
3203       <div class="body">
3204         <p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
3205 Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
3206 which check that services are running, working, and return the
3207 expected results.  It runs automatically just after the first boot on
3208 test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
3209 installations (using non-test ISOs).  It test that the LDAP service is
3210 operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
3211 online resizable, etc, etc.  And it check that the PXE service is
3212 configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
3213
3214 <p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
3215 Edu Wheezy release.  These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
3216 complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
3217 happen all the needed packages need to be on them.  Thanks to our test
3218 suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
3219 cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
3220 When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
3221 using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
3222 working packages to get it working.  And the packages changed name
3223 from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
3224 debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
3225 packages during installation.  Without our test suite, I suspect we
3226 would never have discovered this before release.  Now it is fixed
3227 right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
3228
3229 <p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
3230 administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
3231 test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
3232 any errors are detected.  This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
3233 the problem.</p>
3234
3235 <p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
3236 please join us on
3237 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
3238 irc.debian.org</a> and the
3239 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
3240 list.</p>
3241
3242       </div>
3243       <div class="tags">
3244
3245
3246         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>.
3247
3248
3249       </div>
3250     </div>
3251     <div class="padding"></div>
3252
3253     <div class="entry">
3254       <div class="title">
3255         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html">Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</a>
3256       </div>
3257       <div class="date">
3258         17th June 2013
3259       </div>
3260       <div class="body">
3261         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
3262 Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
3263 globe.  And a while back, an enterprising young man showed up on
3264 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">our IRC channel
3265 #debian-edu</a> and started asking questions about how Debian Edu
3266 worked.  We answered as good as we could, and even convinced him to
3267 help us with translations.  And today I managed to get an interview
3268 with him, to learn more about him.</p>
3269
3270 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3271
3272 <p>I'm a 25 year old free software enthusiast, living in Romania,
3273 which is also my country of origin. Back in 2009, at a New Year's Eve
3274 party, I had a very nice <strike>beer</strike> discussion with a
3275 friend, when we realized we have no organised Debian community in our
3276 country. A few days later, we put together the infrastructure for such
3277 community and even gathered a nice Debian-ish crowd. Since then, I
3278 began my quest as a free software hacker and activist and I am
3279 constantly trying to cover as much ground as possible on that
3280 field.</p>
3281
3282 <p>A few years ago I founded a small web development company, which
3283 provided me the flexible schedule I needed so much for my
3284 activities. For the last 13 months, I have been the Technical Director
3285 of <a href="http://ceata.org/">Fundația Ceata</a>, which is a free
3286 software activist organisation endorsed by the FSF and the FSFE, and
3287 the only one we have in our country.</p>
3288
3289 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
3290 project?</strong></p>
3291
3292 <p>The idea of participating in the Debian Edu project was a surprise
3293 even to me, since I never used it before I began getting involved in
3294 it. This year I had a great opportunity to deliver a talk on
3295 educational software, and I knew immediately where to look. It was a
3296 love at first sight, since I was previously involved with some of the
3297 technologies the project incorporates, and I rapidly found a lot of
3298 ways to contribute.</p>
3299
3300 <p>My first contributions consisted in translating the installer and
3301 configuration dialogs, then I found some bugs to squash (I still
3302 haven't fixed them yet though), and I even got my eyes on some other
3303 areas where I can prove myself helpful. Since the appetite for free
3304 software in my country is pretty low, I'll be happy to be the first
3305 one around here advocating for the project's adoption in educational
3306 environments, and maybe even get my hands dirty in creating a flavour
3307 for our own needs. I am not used to make very advanced plannings, so
3308 from now on, time will tell what I'll be doing next, but I think I
3309 have a pretty consistent starting point.</p>
3310
3311 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3312 Edu?</strong></p>
3313
3314 <p>Not a long time ago, I was in the position of configuring and
3315 maintaining a LDAP server on some Debian derivative, and I must say it
3316 took me a while. A long time ago, I was maintaining a bigger
3317 Samba-powered infrastructure, and I must say I spent quite a lot of
3318 time on it. I have similar stories about many of the services included
3319 with Skolelinux, and the main advantage I see about it is the
3320 out-of-the box availability of them, making it quite competitive when
3321 it comes to managing a school's network, for example.</p>
3322
3323 <p>Of course, there is more to say about Skolelinux than the
3324 availability of the software included, its flexibility in various
3325 scenarios is something I can't wait to experiment "into the wild" (I
3326 only played with virtual machines so far). And I am sure there is a
3327 lot more I haven't discovered yet about it, being so new within the
3328 project.</p>
3329
3330 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3331 Edu?</strong></p>
3332
3333 <p>As usual, when it comes to Debian Blends, I see as the biggest
3334 disadvantage the lack of a numerous team dedicated to the
3335 project. Every day I see the same names in the changelogs, and I have
3336 a constantly fear of the bus factor in this story.  I'd like to see
3337 Debian Edu advertised more as an entry point into the Debian
3338 ecosystem, especially amongst newcomers and students. IMHO there are a
3339 lot low-hanging fruits in terms of bug squashing, and enough
3340 opportunities to get the feeling of the Debian Project's dynamics. Not
3341 to mention it's a very fun blend to work on!</p>
3342
3343 <p>Derived from the previous statement, is the delay in catching up
3344 with the main Debian release and documentation. This is common though
3345 to all blends and derivatives, but it's an issue we can all work
3346 on.</p>
3347
3348 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3349
3350 <p>I can hardly imagine myself spending a day without Vim, since my
3351 daily routine covers writing code and hacking configuration files. I
3352 am a fan of the Awesome window manager (but I also like the
3353 Enlightenment project a lot!),
3354 <a href="http://www.claws-mail.org/‎">Claws Mail</a> due to its ease of
3355 use and very configurable behaviour. Recently I fell in love with
3356 <a href="https://launchpad.net/redshift">Redshift</a>, which helps me
3357 get through the night without headaches. Of course, there is much more
3358 stuff in this bag, but I'll need a blog on my own for doing this!</p>
3359
3360 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3361 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3362
3363 <p>Well, on this field, I cannot do much more than experiment right
3364 now. So, being far from having a recipe for success, I can only assume
3365 that:</p>
3366
3367 <ul>
3368
3369 <li>schools would like to get rid of proprietary software</li>
3370
3371 <li>students will love the openness of the system, and will want to
3372     experiment with it - maybe we need to harvest the native curiosity
3373     of teenagers more?</li>
3374
3375 <li>there is no "right one" when it comes to strategies, but it would
3376     be useful to have some success stories published somewhere, so
3377     other can get some inspiration from them (I know I'd promote
3378     them!)</li>
3379
3380 <li>more active promotion - talks, conferences, even small school
3381     lectures can do magical things if they encounter at least one
3382     person interested. Who knows who that person might be? ;-)</li>
3383
3384 </ul>
3385
3386 <p>I also see some problems in getting Skolelinux into schools; for
3387 example, in our country we have a great deal of corruption issues, so
3388 it might be hard(er) to fight against proprietary solutions. Also,
3389 people who relied on commercial software for all their lives, would be
3390 very hard to convert against their will.</p>
3391
3392       </div>
3393       <div class="tags">
3394
3395
3396         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>.
3397
3398
3399       </div>
3400     </div>
3401     <div class="padding"></div>
3402
3403     <div class="entry">
3404       <div class="title">
3405         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a>
3406       </div>
3407       <div class="date">
3408         12th June 2013
3409       </div>
3410       <div class="body">
3411         <p>There is a certain cross-over between the
3412 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3413 project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
3414 project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
3415 effort between the projects.  One person with a foot in both camps is
3416 Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
3417
3418 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3419
3420 <p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
3421 days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
3422 getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
3423
3424 <p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
3425 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
3426 each other.</p>
3427
3428 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
3429 project?</strong></p>
3430
3431 <p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
3432 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
3433 [Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
3434 London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
3435 Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
3436 it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
3437 was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
3438 day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
3439 over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
3440 been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
3441 still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
3442 we'll get there one day.</p>
3443
3444 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3445 Edu?</strong></p>
3446
3447 <p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
3448 it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
3449 that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
3450 very high quality work.</p>
3451
3452 <p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
3453 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
3454 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
3455 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
3456 community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
3457
3458 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3459 Edu?</strong></p>
3460
3461 <p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
3462 separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
3463 what I originally rambled on about)</p>
3464
3465 <p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
3466 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
3467 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
3468 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
3469 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
3470 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
3471 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
3472 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
3473 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
3474 currently.</p>
3475
3476 <p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
3477 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
3478 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
3479 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
3480 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
3481 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
3482 autonomous.</p>
3483
3484 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3485
3486 <p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
3487 Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
3488 some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
3489 particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
3490 so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
3491
3492 <p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
3493 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
3494 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
3495 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
3496 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
3497 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
3498 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
3499 X.</p>
3500
3501 <p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
3502 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
3503 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
3504 it :p)
3505
3506 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3507 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3508
3509 <p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
3510 many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
3511 don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
3512 that.</p>
3513
3514 <p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
3515 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
3516 advantage of that.</p>
3517
3518 <p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
3519 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
3520 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
3521 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
3522 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
3523 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
3524 best solution for them.</p>
3525
3526 <p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
3527 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
3528 make a decision that would work for them.</p>
3529
3530       </div>
3531       <div class="tags">
3532
3533
3534         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>.
3535
3536
3537       </div>
3538     </div>
3539     <div class="padding"></div>
3540
3541     <div class="entry">
3542       <div class="title">
3543         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
3544       </div>
3545       <div class="date">
3546         11th June 2013
3547       </div>
3548       <div class="body">
3549         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
3550 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
3551 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
3552 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
3553 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
3554 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
3555 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
3556 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
3557 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
3558 i915 driver used by the
3559 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3560 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
3561
3562 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
3563 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
3564 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
3565 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
3566 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
3567
3568 <pre>
3569 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
3570 update-initramfs -u -k all
3571 </pre>
3572
3573 <p>Since March 2012 there is
3574 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
3575 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
3576 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
3577 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
3578 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
3579 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
3580 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
3581 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
3582 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
3583 number.</p>
3584
3585 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
3586 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
3587
3588 <p><pre>
3589 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
3590     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
3591     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
3592  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
3593  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
3594     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
3595  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
3596     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
3597  Latency: 0
3598  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
3599  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
3600  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
3601  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
3602  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
3603  Capabilities: <access denied>
3604  Kernel driver in use: i915
3605 </pre></p>
3606
3607 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
3608
3609 <p><pre>
3610 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
3611        ...
3612         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
3613         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
3614        ...
3615 }
3616 </pre></p>
3617
3618 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
3619 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
3620 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
3621 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
3622 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
3623 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
3624 yet shown up in
3625 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
3626 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
3627 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
3628 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
3629 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
3630 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
3631
3632 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
3633 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
3634 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
3635 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
3636 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
3637 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
3638 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
3639 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
3640 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
3641 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
3642 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
3643 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
3644
3645 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
3646 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
3647 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
3648 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
3649 backlight.</p>
3650
3651       </div>
3652       <div class="tags">
3653
3654
3655         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>.
3656
3657
3658       </div>
3659     </div>
3660     <div class="padding"></div>
3661
3662     <div class="entry">
3663       <div class="title">
3664         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Third alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
3665       </div>
3666       <div class="date">
3667         10th June 2013
3668       </div>
3669       <div class="body">
3670         <p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
3671 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
3672
3673 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
3674 2013-06-10</strong></p>
3675
3676 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
3677 alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
3678
3679 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
3680
3681 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
3682 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
3683 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
3684 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
3685 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
3686 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
3687 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
3688 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
3689 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
3690 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
3691 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
3692 desktop contains
3693 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
3694 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
3695 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
3696 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
3697
3698 <p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
3699 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
3700 Squeeze release.</p>
3701
3702 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
3703
3704 <ul>
3705
3706 <li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
3707 <li>Updated libxv (DSA-2674), libxvmc (DSA-2675), libxfixes (DSA-2676), libxrender (DSA-2677), mesa (DSA-2678), xserver-xorg-video-openchrome (DSA-2679), libxt (DSA-2680), libxcursor (DSA-2681), libxext (DSA-2682), libxi (DSA-2683), libxrandr (DSA-2684), libxp (DSA-2685), libxcb (DSA-2686), libfs (DSA-2687), libxres (DSA-2688), libxtst (DSA-2689), libxxf86dga (DSA-2690), libxinerama (DSA-2691), libxxf86vm (DSA-2692), libx11 (DSA-2693), chromium-browser (DSA-2695), gnutls26 (DSA-2697), wireshark (DSA-2700), krb5 (DSA-2701), telepathy-gabble (DSA-2702) and subversion (DSA-2703).
3708 <li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
3709 <li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
3710 <li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
3711
3712 </ul>
3713
3714 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
3715
3716 <ul>
3717
3718 <li>The subnet-change script is now able to change all files needing a change on the main-server when changing the IP network used.
3719 <li>Updated translation of the installation.
3720 <li>New Romanian translation.
3721 <li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
3722 <li>Fix roaming workstation setup (Closed in libpam-mklocaluser/0.8, libpam-mklocaluser/0.8~deb7u1: #706753: libpam-mklocaluser: Fail to create local user during first login).
3723 <li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
3724 <li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
3725 <li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
3726 <li>More testsuite tests.
3727 <li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
3728 <li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
3729
3730 <li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
3731 LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
3732
3733 <li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
3734 them up with GOsa².</li>
3735
3736 <li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
3737
3738 <li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
3739 slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
3740 entered password). </li>
3741
3742 </ul>
3743
3744 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
3745
3746 <ul>
3747
3748 <li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
3749
3750 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
3751 available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
3752 missing import feature).</li>
3753
3754 <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
3755
3756 <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
3757 own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
3758 unfixed.</li>
3759
3760 </ul>
3761
3762 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
3763
3764 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
3765
3766 <ul>
3767
3768 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
3769
3770 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
3771
3772 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
3773
3774 </ul>
3775
3776 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
3777 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
3778
3779 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
3780
3781 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
3782
3783       </div>
3784       <div class="tags">
3785
3786
3787         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>.
3788
3789
3790       </div>
3791     </div>
3792     <div class="padding"></div>
3793
3794     <div class="entry">
3795       <div class="title">
3796         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_there_a_PHP_expert_in_the_building___Debian_Edu_need_help_.html">Is there a PHP expert in the building?  Debian Edu need help!</a>
3797       </div>
3798       <div class="date">
3799          5th June 2013
3800       </div>
3801       <div class="body">
3802         <p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
3803 We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
3804 hope to get released soon.  The two problems require some with PHP
3805 skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
3806 the project:
3807
3808 <ol>
3809
3810 <li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
3811   (slbackup-php) using the root user and password.  This is
3812   <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
3813   This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
3814   Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
3815
3816 <li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
3817   using ldif nor using CSV files.  The feature was disabled after a
3818   major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
3819   This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
3820   #698840</a>.</li>
3821
3822 </ol>
3823
3824 <p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
3825 (<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
3826 irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
3827
3828       </div>
3829       <div class="tags">
3830
3831
3832         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>.
3833
3834
3835       </div>
3836     </div>
3837     <div class="padding"></div>
3838
3839     <div class="entry">
3840       <div class="title">
3841         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a>
3842       </div>
3843       <div class="date">
3844          4th June 2013
3845       </div>
3846       <div class="body">
3847         <p>It has been a while since my last English
3848 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
3849 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
3850 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
3851 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
3852 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
3853
3854 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3855
3856 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
3857 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
3858 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
3859 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
3860
3861 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
3862 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
3863 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
3864
3865 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
3866 project?</strong></p>
3867
3868 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
3869 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
3870 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
3871 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
3872 manual.
3873
3874 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
3875 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
3876 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
3877 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
3878
3879 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
3880 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
3881 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
3882 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
3883 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
3884 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
3885 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
3886 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
3887 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
3888 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
3889
3890 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
3891 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
3892 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
3893 beautiful project.</p>
3894
3895 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3896 Edu?</strong></p>
3897
3898 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
3899 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
3900 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
3901
3902 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
3903 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
3904 of educational free software.</p>
3905
3906 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3907 Edu?</strong></p>
3908
3909 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
3910 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
3911 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
3912 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
3913 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
3914
3915 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
3916 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
3917 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
3918 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
3919 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
3920 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
3921 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
3922 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
3923
3924 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3925
3926 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
3927 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
3928 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
3929 also using the mathematical software
3930 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
3931 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
3932 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
3933
3934 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
3935 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
3936 statistics?</strong></p>
3937
3938 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
3939 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
3940 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
3941 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
3942
3943 <ul>
3944
3945 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
3946 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
3947 constructions in planar geometry
3948
3949 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
3950 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
3951 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
3952
3953 </ul>
3954
3955 <p>I like also
3956 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
3957 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
3958 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
3959
3960 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3961 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3962
3963 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
3964
3965 <ul>
3966
3967 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
3968
3969 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
3970     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
3971     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
3972
3973 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
3974
3975 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
3976     system.</li>
3977
3978 </ul>
3979
3980       </div>
3981       <div class="tags">
3982
3983
3984         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>.
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/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">Educational applications included in Debian Edu / Skolelinux (the screenshot collection :-)</a>
3994       </div>
3995       <div class="date">
3996          1st June 2013
3997       </div>
3998       <div class="body">
3999         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
4000 Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
4001 Created to help teachers teach, and pupils learn.  We have tried to
4002 tag them all using debtags use::learning and role::program, and using
4003 the debtags I was happy to be able to create a collage of the
4004 educational software packages installed by default, sorted by the
4005 debtag field.  Here it is.  Click on a image to learn more about the
4006 program.</p>
4007
4008 <!-- for f in $(debtags tagcat|grep field::|awk '{print $2}'); do   echo; echo "<p><strong>$f</strong></p>"; echo "<p>";   (     for p in $(debtags search --names "use::learning && interface::x11 && role::program && $f"); do img="<img src='http://screenshots.debian.net/thumbnail/$p' alt='$p'>"; if dpkg -s $p > /dev/null 2>&1; then           echo "<a href='http://packages.qa.debian.org/$p'>$img</a>"; fi;     done;   ) | LANG=C sort; echo "</p>"; done -->
4009
4010 <p><strong>field::arts</strong></p>
4011 <p>
4012 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=audacity'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/audacity.png' alt='audacity'></a>
4013 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
4014 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=denemo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/denemo.png' alt='denemo'></a>
4015 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=freebirth'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/freebirth.png' alt='freebirth'></a>
4016 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
4017 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gimp'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gimp.png' alt='gimp'></a>
4018 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=hydrogen'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/hydrogen.png' alt='hydrogen'></a>
4019 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lilypond'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lilypond.png' alt='lilypond'></a>
4020 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lmms'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lmms.png' alt='lmms'></a>
4021 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rosegarden'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rosegarden.png' alt='rosegarden'></a>
4022 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scribus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scribus.png' alt='scribus'></a>
4023 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=solfege'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/solfege.png' alt='solfege'></a>
4024 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stopmotion'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stopmotion.png' alt='stopmotion'></a>
4025 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxpaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxpaint.png' alt='tuxpaint'></a>
4026 </p>
4027
4028 <p><strong>field::astronomy</strong></p>
4029 <p>
4030 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=celestia-gnome'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/celestia-gnome.png' alt='celestia-gnome'></a>
4031 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpredict'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gpredict.png' alt='gpredict'></a>
4032 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kstars'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kstars.png' alt='kstars'></a>
4033 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=planets'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/planets.png' alt='planets'></a>
4034 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stellarium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stellarium.png' alt='stellarium'></a>
4035 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
4036 </p>
4037
4038 <p><strong>field::biology:structural</strong></p>
4039 <p>
4040 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
4041 </p>
4042
4043 <p><strong>field::chemistry</strong></p>
4044 <p>
4045 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=atomix'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/atomix.png' alt='atomix'></a>
4046 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=chemtool'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/chemtool.png' alt='chemtool'></a>
4047 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=easychem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/easychem.png' alt='easychem'></a>
4048 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gchempaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gchempaint.png' alt='gchempaint'></a>
4049 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gdis'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gdis.png' alt='gdis'></a>
4050 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ghemical'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ghemical.png' alt='ghemical'></a>
4051 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gperiodic'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gperiodic.png' alt='gperiodic'></a>
4052 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalzium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalzium.png' alt='kalzium'></a>
4053 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
4054 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=viewmol'>[viewmol]</a>
4055 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xdrawchem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xdrawchem.png' alt='xdrawchem'></a>
4056 </p>
4057
4058 <p><strong>field::electronics</strong></p>
4059 <p>
4060 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
4061 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpsim'>[gpsim]</a>
4062 </p>
4063
4064 <p><strong>field::geography</strong></p>
4065 <p>
4066 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kgeography'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kgeography.png' alt='kgeography'></a>
4067 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=marble'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/marble.png' alt='marble'></a>
4068 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
4069 </p>
4070
4071 <p><strong>field::linguistics</strong></p>
4072 <p>
4073 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
4074 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kanagram'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kanagram.png' alt='kanagram'></a>
4075 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=khangman'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/khangman.png' alt='khangman'></a>
4076 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=klettres'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/klettres.png' alt='klettres'></a>
4077 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=parley'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/parley.png' alt='parley'></a>
4078 </p>
4079
4080 <p><strong>field::mathematics</strong></p>
4081 <p>
4082 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
4083 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=drgeo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/drgeo.png' alt='drgeo'></a>
4084 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
4085 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geogebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/geogebra.png' alt='geogebra'></a>
4086 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geomview'>[geomview]</a>
4087 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=grace'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/grace.png' alt='grace'></a>
4088 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphmonkey'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphmonkey.png' alt='graphmonkey'></a>
4089 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphthing'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphthing.png' alt='graphthing'></a>
4090 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalgebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalgebra.png' alt='kalgebra'></a>
4091 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kbruch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kbruch.png' alt='kbruch'></a>
4092 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kig'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kig.png' alt='kig'></a>
4093 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kmplot'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kmplot.png' alt='kmplot'></a>
4094 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=mathwar'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/mathwar.png' alt='mathwar'></a>
4095 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rocs'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rocs.png' alt='rocs'></a>
4096 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
4097 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxmath'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxmath.png' alt='tuxmath'></a>
4098 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xabacus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xabacus.png' alt='xabacus'></a>
4099 </p>
4100
4101 <p><strong>field::physics</strong></p>
4102 <p>
4103 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
4104 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=step'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/step.png' alt='step'></a>
4105 </p>
4106
4107 <p><strong>field::TODO</strong></p>
4108 <p>
4109 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=blinken'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/blinken.png' alt='blinken'></a>
4110 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=cgoban'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/cgoban.png' alt='cgoban'></a>
4111 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
4112 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
4113 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnuchess'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnuchess.png' alt='gnuchess'></a>
4114 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnugo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnugo.png' alt='gnugo'></a>
4115 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gtans'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gtans.png' alt='gtans'></a>
4116 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ktouch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ktouch.png' alt='ktouch'></a>
4117 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=librecad'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/librecad.png' alt='librecad'></a>
4118 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
4119 </p>
4120
4121 <p>In total, 61 applications.  3 of them lacked screen shots on
4122 <a href="http://screenshot.debian.net">screenshot.debian.net</a>.  If
4123 you know of some packages we should install by default, please let us
4124 know on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu
4125 on irc.debian.org</a>, or our
4126 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">mailing list
4127 debian-edu@</a>.</p>
4128
4129       </div>
4130       <div class="tags">
4131
4132
4133         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>.
4134
4135
4136       </div>
4137     </div>
4138     <div class="padding"></div>
4139
4140     <div class="entry">
4141       <div class="title">
4142         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
4143       </div>
4144       <div class="date">
4145         27th May 2013
4146       </div>
4147       <div class="body">
4148         <p>Two days ago, I asked
4149 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
4150 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
4151 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
4152 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
4153 and Windows 8.</p>
4154
4155 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
4156 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
4157 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
4158 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
4159 enough to tell.</p>
4160
4161 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
4162 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
4163 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
4164 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
4165 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
4166 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
4167 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
4168 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
4169 to follow.</p>
4170
4171 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
4172 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
4173 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
4174 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
4175 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
4176 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
4177 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
4178 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
4179
4180 <p>I've updated the
4181 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
4182 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
4183 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
4184 machine.</p>
4185
4186 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
4187 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
4188
4189       </div>
4190       <div class="tags">
4191
4192
4193         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>.
4194
4195
4196       </div>
4197     </div>
4198     <div class="padding"></div>
4199
4200     <div class="entry">
4201       <div class="title">
4202         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
4203       </div>
4204       <div class="date">
4205         25th May 2013
4206       </div>
4207       <div class="body">
4208         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
4209 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
4210 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
4211 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
4212 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
4213 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
4214
4215 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
4216 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
4217 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
4218 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
4219 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
4220 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
4221 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
4222 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
4223 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
4224 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
4225
4226 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
4227 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
4228 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
4229 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
4230 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
4231 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
4232
4233 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
4234 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
4235 on new Laptops?</p>
4236
4237       </div>
4238       <div class="tags">
4239
4240
4241         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>.
4242
4243
4244       </div>
4245     </div>
4246     <div class="padding"></div>
4247
4248     <div class="entry">
4249       <div class="title">
4250         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
4251       </div>
4252       <div class="date">
4253         17th May 2013
4254       </div>
4255       <div class="body">
4256         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
4257 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
4258 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
4259 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
4260 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
4261 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
4262 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
4263 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
4264 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
4265 donate some money</a>.
4266
4267 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
4268 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
4269 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
4270 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
4271 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
4272
4273 <p>The script,
4274 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
4275 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
4276 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
4277 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
4278
4279 <ol>
4280
4281 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
4282 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
4283 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
4284     our configuration.</li>
4285 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
4286     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
4287     according to the profile specified in the config above,
4288     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
4289 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
4290     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
4291 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
4292
4293 </ol>
4294
4295 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
4296 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
4297 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
4298 the needed packages.</p>
4299
4300 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
4301 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
4302 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
4303 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
4304 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
4305 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
4306
4307 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
4308 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
4309 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
4310
4311 <p><pre>
4312 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
4313 DESKTOP="lxde"
4314 </pre></p>
4315
4316 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
4317 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
4318 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
4319 boot.</p>
4320
4321       </div>
4322       <div class="tags">
4323
4324
4325         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>.
4326
4327
4328       </div>
4329     </div>
4330     <div class="padding"></div>
4331
4332     <div class="entry">
4333       <div class="title">
4334         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
4335       </div>
4336       <div class="date">
4337         14th May 2013
4338       </div>
4339       <div class="body">
4340         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4341 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
4342 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
4343
4344 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
4345 2013-05-14</strong></p>
4346
4347 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
4348 alpha1, based on <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
4349 codename "Wheezy".</p>
4350
4351 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
4352
4353 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
4354 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
4355 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
4356 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
4357 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
4358 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
4359 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
4360 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
4361
4362 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
4363 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
4364 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
4365
4366 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
4367 <ul>
4368   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
4369     default.</li>
4370   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
4371   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
4372   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
4373     ibus-anthy.</li>
4374 </ul>
4375
4376 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
4377 <ul>
4378
4379   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
4380     reliability improvements.</li>
4381   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
4382     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
4383   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
4384     problems.</li>
4385   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
4386     direct:// URL.</li>
4387   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
4388   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
4389   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
4390   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
4391     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
4392   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
4393     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
4394 </ul>
4395
4396 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
4397 <ul>
4398
4399   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
4400     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
4401     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
4402   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
4403   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
4404     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
4405   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
4406   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
4407   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
4408     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
4409   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
4410     password submission problem
4411     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
4412
4413 </ul>
4414
4415 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
4416
4417 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
4418 <ul>
4419
4420   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
4421   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
4422   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</li>
4423
4424 </ul>
4425
4426 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
4427
4428 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
4429
4430 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
4431
4432 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
4433
4434       </div>
4435       <div class="tags">
4436
4437
4438         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>.
4439
4440
4441       </div>
4442     </div>
4443     <div class="padding"></div>
4444
4445     <div class="entry">
4446       <div class="title">
4447         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
4448       </div>
4449       <div class="date">
4450         11th May 2013
4451       </div>
4452       <div class="body">
4453         <P>In January,
4454 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
4455 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
4456 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
4457 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
4458 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
4459 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
4460 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
4461 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
4462 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
4463 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
4464 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
4465 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
4466
4467 <p><table>
4468 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
4469 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
4470 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
4471 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
4472 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
4473 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
4474 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
4475 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
4476 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
4477 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
4478 </table></p>
4479
4480 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
4481 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
4482 available in experimental.</p>
4483
4484 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
4485 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
4486 for LEGO designers.</p>
4487
4488       </div>
4489       <div class="tags">
4490
4491
4492         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>.
4493
4494
4495       </div>
4496     </div>
4497     <div class="padding"></div>
4498
4499     <div class="entry">
4500       <div class="title">
4501         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
4502       </div>
4503       <div class="date">
4504          5th May 2013
4505       </div>
4506       <div class="body">
4507         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
4508 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
4509 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
4510 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
4511 soon.</p>
4512
4513 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
4514 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
4515 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
4516 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
4517 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
4518 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
4519 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
4520 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
4521 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
4522 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
4523 Edu.</a>
4524
4525 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
4526 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
4527 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
4528 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
4529 follow.<p>
4530
4531       </div>
4532       <div class="tags">
4533
4534
4535         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>.
4536
4537
4538       </div>
4539     </div>
4540     <div class="padding"></div>
4541
4542     <div class="entry">
4543       <div class="title">
4544         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
4545       </div>
4546       <div class="date">
4547         26th April 2013
4548       </div>
4549       <div class="body">
4550         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
4551 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
4552 announcement:</p>
4553
4554 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
4555 2013-04-26</strong></p>
4556
4557 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
4558 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
4559
4560 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
4561
4562 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
4563 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
4564 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
4565 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
4566 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
4567 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
4568 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
4569 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
4570 installed via the network.</p>
4571
4572 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
4573 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
4574 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
4575
4576 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
4577
4578 <ul>
4579 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
4580   <ul>
4581      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
4582      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
4583          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
4584          manual.)</li>
4585      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
4586      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
4587      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
4588      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
4589      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
4590      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
4591      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
4592      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
4593      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
4594      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
4595      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
4596      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
4597          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
4598          manual</a> for more details.</li>
4599      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
4600          installation.</li>
4601      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
4602          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/releasenotes">release notes</a> and the <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation manual</a>.</li>
4603   </ul></li>
4604 </ul>
4605
4606 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
4607 <ul>
4608 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
4609     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
4610     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
4611 </ul>
4612
4613 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
4614 <ul>
4615 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
4616     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
4617     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
4618 </ul>
4619
4620 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
4621 <ul>
4622 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
4623     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
4624     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
4625 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
4626     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
4627     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
4628 </ul>
4629
4630 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
4631 <ul>
4632 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
4633     yet.</li>
4634 </ul>
4635
4636 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
4637
4638 <ul>
4639 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
4640     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
4641     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
4642 </ul>
4643
4644 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
4645
4646 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
4647 <ul>
4648 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
4649 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
4650 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
4651 </ul>
4652
4653 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
4654
4655 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
4656
4657 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
4658
4659 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
4660
4661       </div>
4662       <div class="tags">
4663
4664
4665         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>.
4666
4667
4668       </div>
4669     </div>
4670     <div class="padding"></div>
4671
4672     <div class="entry">
4673       <div class="title">
4674         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_developer_gathering_in_2013_take_place_in_Trondheim.html">First Debian Edu / Skolelinux developer gathering in 2013 take place in Trondheim</a>
4675       </div>
4676       <div class="date">
4677         16th April 2013
4678       </div>
4679       <div class="body">
4680         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
4681 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
4682 Details about the gathering can be found
4683 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
4684 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
4685 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
4686 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
4687 weekend.</p>
4688
4689 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
4690 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
4691 Edu release.</p>
4692
4693 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
4694
4695       </div>
4696       <div class="tags">
4697
4698
4699         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>.
4700
4701
4702       </div>
4703     </div>
4704     <div class="padding"></div>
4705
4706     <div class="entry">
4707       <div class="title">
4708         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
4709       </div>
4710       <div class="date">
4711          3rd April 2013
4712       </div>
4713       <div class="body">
4714         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
4715 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
4716 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
4717 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
4718
4719 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
4720 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
4721 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
4722 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
4723 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
4724 BTS. :)</p>
4725
4726       </div>
4727       <div class="tags">
4728
4729
4730         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>.
4731
4732
4733       </div>
4734     </div>
4735     <div class="padding"></div>
4736
4737     <div class="entry">
4738       <div class="title">
4739         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Change_the_font__save_the_world__and_save_some_money_in_the_process_.html">Change the font, save the world (and save some money in the process)</a>
4740       </div>
4741       <div class="date">
4742         26th March 2013
4743       </div>
4744       <div class="body">
4745         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
4746 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
4747 font you use when printing.</p>
4748
4749 <p>Three years ago,
4750 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
4751 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
4752 changed their default front from
4753 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
4754 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
4755 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
4756 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
4757 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
4758 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
4759 prints.</p>
4760
4761 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
4762 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
4763 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
4764 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
4765 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
4766 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
4767 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
4768 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
4769 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
4770 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
4771 depend on the documents printed.</p>
4772
4773 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
4774 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
4775 and save some money in the process.</p>
4776
4777 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
4778 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
4779 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
4780 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
4781 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
4782 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
4783 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
4784 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
4785 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
4786
4787       </div>
4788       <div class="tags">
4789
4790
4791         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4792
4793
4794       </div>
4795     </div>
4796     <div class="padding"></div>
4797
4798     <div class="entry">
4799       <div class="title">
4800         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Typesetting_a_short_story_using_docbook_for_PDF__HTML_and_EPUB.html">Typesetting a short story using docbook for PDF, HTML and EPUB</a>
4801       </div>
4802       <div class="date">
4803         24th March 2013
4804       </div>
4805       <div class="body">
4806         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
4807 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
4808 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
4809 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
4810 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
4811 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
4812 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
4813 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
4814 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
4815 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
4816 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
4817 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
4818
4819 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
4820 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
4821 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
4822 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
4823 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
4824 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
4825 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
4826 all I had to do was to use the
4827 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
4828 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
4829 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
4830 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
4831 xsltproc/fop (aka
4832 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
4833 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
4834 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
4835 technical detail.</p>
4836
4837 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
4838 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
4839 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
4840 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
4841 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
4842 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
4843
4844 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
4845 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
4846 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
4847 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
4848 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
4849 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
4850 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
4851 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
4852 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
4853
4854 <p><blockquote><pre>
4855 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
4856 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
4857   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
4858     &lt;hr/&gt;
4859   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
4860 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
4861 </pre></blockquote></p>
4862
4863 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
4864
4865 <p><blockquote><pre>
4866 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
4867 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
4868   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
4869     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
4870       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
4871     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
4872   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
4873 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
4874 </pre></blockquote></p>
4875
4876 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
4877 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
4878 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
4879 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
4880 enough.</p>
4881
4882 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
4883 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
4884 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
4885 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
4886 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
4887 look like this:</p>
4888
4889 <p><blockquote><pre>
4890 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
4891 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
4892   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
4893     &lt;br/&gt;
4894   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
4895 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
4896 </pre></blockquote></p>
4897
4898 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
4899
4900 <p><blockquote><pre>
4901 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
4902 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
4903   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
4904   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
4905     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
4906   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
4907 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
4908 </pre></blockquote></p>
4909
4910 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
4911 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
4912 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
4913 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
4914 page.</p>
4915
4916 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
4917 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
4918 github</a>
4919 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
4920 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
4921 days.</p>
4922
4923       </div>
4924       <div class="tags">
4925
4926
4927         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
4928
4929
4930       </div>
4931     </div>
4932     <div class="padding"></div>
4933
4934     <div class="entry">
4935       <div class="title">
4936         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_6_got_a_video_review_from_Pcwizz.html">Skolelinux 6 got a video review from Pcwizz</a>
4937       </div>
4938       <div class="date">
4939         17th March 2013
4940       </div>
4941       <div class="body">
4942         <p>Via
4943 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
4944 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
4945 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
4946 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
4947 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
4948 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
4949 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
4950
4951 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
4952 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
4953
4954 <blockquote>
4955 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
4956 </blockquote>
4957
4958 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
4959
4960 <blockquote>
4961 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
4962 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
4963 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
4964 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
4965 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
4966 </blockquote>
4967
4968 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
4969 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
4970 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
4971 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
4972
4973 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
4974 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
4975
4976 <blockquote>
4977 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
4978 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
4979 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
4980 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
4981 </blockquote>
4982
4983 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
4984 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
4985 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
4986 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
4987 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
4988
4989 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
4990 embedding:</p>
4991
4992 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
4993
4994       </div>
4995       <div class="tags">
4996
4997
4998         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>.
4999
5000
5001       </div>
5002     </div>
5003     <div class="padding"></div>
5004
5005     <div class="entry">
5006       <div class="title">
5007         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
5008       </div>
5009       <div class="date">
5010          8th March 2013
5011       </div>
5012       <div class="body">
5013         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
5014 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
5015 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
5016 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
5017 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
5018 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
5019 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
5020
5021 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
5022
5023 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
5024 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
5025
5026 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
5027 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
5028 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
5029 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
5030 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
5031 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
5032
5033 <p>Images are available for download at
5034 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
5035
5036 <p>md5sums:
5037 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
5038 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
5039 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
5040
5041 <p>sha1sums:
5042 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
5043 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
5044 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
5045
5046 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
5047
5048 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
5049 2013-03-03:</p>
5050
5051 <ul>
5052   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
5053   <ul>
5054         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
5055         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
5056   </ul></li>
5057   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
5058   <ul>
5059         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
5060         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
5061   </ul></li>
5062   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
5063      <ul>
5064         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
5065         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
5066         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
5067                 Closes: #664596</li>
5068         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
5069                 Closes: #664976</li>
5070         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
5071            <ul>
5072                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
5073                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
5074            </ul></li>
5075         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
5076            <ul>
5077                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
5078                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
5079                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
5080                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
5081                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
5082            </ul></li>
5083         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
5084     </ul>
5085   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
5086     <ul>
5087         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
5088     </ul></li>
5089 </ul>
5090
5091 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
5092 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
5093 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
5094 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
5095
5096 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
5097 mailinglist
5098 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
5099 </p></blockquote>
5100
5101 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
5102
5103       </div>
5104       <div class="tags">
5105
5106
5107         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>.
5108
5109
5110       </div>
5111     </div>
5112     <div class="padding"></div>
5113
5114     <div class="entry">
5115       <div class="title">
5116         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen___Complete_TV_station_organised_using_the_web.html">Frikanalen - Complete TV station organised using the web</a>
5117       </div>
5118       <div class="date">
5119          3rd March 2013
5120       </div>
5121       <div class="body">
5122         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
5123 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
5124 support using
5125 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
5126 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
5127 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
5128 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
5129 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
5130 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
5131 using the GNU LGPL, and
5132 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
5133
5134 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
5135 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
5136 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
5137 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
5138 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
5139 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
5140
5141 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
5142 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
5143 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
5144 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
5145 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
5146 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
5147 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
5148 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
5149 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
5150 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
5151 signal distribution is handled using
5152 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
5153 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
5154 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
5155 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
5156 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
5157 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
5158 them up a bit more first.</p>
5159
5160 <p>The development is coordinated on the
5161 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
5162 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
5163 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
5164 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
5165 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
5166 development.</p>
5167
5168       </div>
5169       <div class="tags">
5170
5171
5172         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
5173
5174
5175       </div>
5176     </div>
5177     <div class="padding"></div>
5178
5179     <div class="entry">
5180       <div class="title">
5181         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dr__Richard_Stallman__founder_of_Free_Software_Foundation__give_a_talk_in_Oslo_March_1st_2013.html">Dr. Richard Stallman, founder of Free Software Foundation, give a talk in Oslo March 1st 2013</a>
5182       </div>
5183       <div class="date">
5184         27th February 2013
5185       </div>
5186       <div class="body">
5187         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
5188 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
5189 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
5190 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
5191 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
5192 (where I am the chair of the board) and
5193 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
5194 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
5195 GNU», with this description:
5196
5197 <p><blockquote>
5198 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
5199 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
5200 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
5201 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
5202 </blockquote></p>
5203
5204 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
5205 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
5206 am really curious how many will show up.  See
5207 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
5208 page</a> for the location details.</p>
5209
5210       </div>
5211       <div class="tags">
5212
5213
5214         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
5215
5216
5217       </div>
5218     </div>
5219     <div class="padding"></div>
5220
5221     <div class="entry">
5222       <div class="title">
5223         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikart___Free_Garmin_maps_for_European_countries_based_on_OpenStreetmap.html">Frikart - Free Garmin maps for European countries based on OpenStreetmap</a>
5224       </div>
5225       <div class="date">
5226         15th February 2013
5227       </div>
5228       <div class="body">
5229         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
5230 now a great source of free maps available from
5231 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
5232 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
5233 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
5234 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
5235 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
5236 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
5237 page for descriptions).</p>
5238
5239 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
5240 map you can just edit the
5241 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
5242 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
5243
5244       </div>
5245       <div class="tags">
5246
5247
5248         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>.
5249
5250
5251       </div>
5252     </div>
5253     <div class="padding"></div>
5254
5255     <div class="entry">
5256       <div class="title">
5257         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Electronic__paper_invoices___using_vCard_in_a_QR_code.html">"Electronic" paper invoices - using vCard in a QR code</a>
5258       </div>
5259       <div class="date">
5260         12th February 2013
5261       </div>
5262       <div class="body">
5263         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
5264 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
5265 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
5266 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
5267 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
5268 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
5269 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
5270 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
5271 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
5272 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
5273 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
5274 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
5275 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
5276 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
5277 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
5278 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
5279
5280 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
5281 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
5282 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
5283 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
5284 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
5285 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
5286 fields:</p>
5287
5288 <p><pre>
5289 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
5290 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
5291 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
5292 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
5293 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
5294 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
5295 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
5296 </pre></p>
5297
5298 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
5299 answer regarding
5300 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
5301 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
5302 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
5303 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
5304
5305 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
5306
5307 <p><pre>
5308 BEGIN:VCARD
5309 VERSION:2.1
5310 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
5311 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
5312 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
5313 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
5314 REV:20130212T095000Z
5315 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
5316 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
5317 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
5318 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
5319 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
5320 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
5321 END:VCARD
5322 </pre></p>
5323
5324 <p>The resulting QR code created using
5325 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
5326 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
5327 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
5328 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
5329 system.</p>
5330
5331 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
5332
5333 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
5334 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
5335 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
5336 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
5337
5338 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
5339 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
5340
5341       </div>
5342       <div class="tags">
5343
5344
5345         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>.
5346
5347
5348       </div>
5349     </div>
5350     <div class="padding"></div>
5351
5352     <div class="entry">
5353       <div class="title">
5354         <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>
5355       </div>
5356       <div class="date">
5357         10th February 2013
5358       </div>
5359       <div class="body">
5360         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
5361
5362 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
5363 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
5364 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
5365 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
5366 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
5367 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
5368 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
5369 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
5370 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
5371 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
5372 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
5373
5374 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
5375 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
5376 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
5377 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
5378 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
5379 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
5380 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
5381 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
5382 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
5383 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
5384 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
5385 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
5386 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
5387 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
5388 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
5389 ones own
5390 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
5391 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
5392 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
5393 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
5394 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
5395 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
5396 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
5397 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
5398 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
5399 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
5400 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
5401
5402 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
5403 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
5404 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
5405 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
5406 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
5407 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
5408
5409 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
5410 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
5411 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
5412
5413       </div>
5414       <div class="tags">
5415
5416
5417         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5418
5419
5420       </div>
5421     </div>
5422     <div class="padding"></div>
5423
5424     <div class="entry">
5425       <div class="title">
5426         <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>
5427       </div>
5428       <div class="date">
5429          2nd February 2013
5430       </div>
5431       <div class="body">
5432         <p>My
5433 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
5434 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
5435 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
5436 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
5437 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
5438 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
5439 version too.</p>
5440
5441 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
5442 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
5443 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
5444 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
5445 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
5446 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
5447 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
5448 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
5449
5450 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
5451 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
5452 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
5453 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
5454 it. :)</p>
5455
5456 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5457 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5458 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5459
5460       </div>
5461       <div class="tags">
5462
5463
5464         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>.
5465
5466
5467       </div>
5468     </div>
5469     <div class="padding"></div>
5470
5471     <div class="entry">
5472       <div class="title">
5473         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
5474       </div>
5475       <div class="date">
5476         22nd January 2013
5477       </div>
5478       <div class="body">
5479         <p>Yesterday, I
5480 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
5481 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
5482 pluggable hardware devices, which I
5483 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
5484 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
5485 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
5486 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
5487 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
5488 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
5489 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
5490 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
5491 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
5492 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
5493
5494 <pre>
5495 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
5496 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
5497 </pre>
5498
5499 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
5500 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
5501 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
5502 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
5503
5504 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
5505 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
5506 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
5507 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
5508 word.</p>
5509
5510 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
5511 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
5512 process.</p>
5513
5514 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
5515 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
5516
5517       </div>
5518       <div class="tags">
5519
5520
5521         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>.
5522
5523
5524       </div>
5525     </div>
5526     <div class="padding"></div>
5527
5528     <div class="entry">
5529       <div class="title">
5530         <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>
5531       </div>
5532       <div class="date">
5533         21st January 2013
5534       </div>
5535       <div class="body">
5536         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
5537 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
5538 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
5539 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
5540 it, fetch the
5541 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
5542 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
5543 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
5544 autostart script.</p>
5545
5546 <p>The design is simple:</p>
5547
5548 <ul>
5549
5550 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
5551 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
5552
5553 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
5554 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
5555 initially did.</li>
5556
5557 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
5558 the APT database, a database
5559 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
5560 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
5561
5562 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
5563 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
5564 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
5565 package or packages.</li>
5566
5567 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
5568 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
5569
5570 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
5571 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
5572
5573 </ul>
5574
5575 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
5576 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
5577 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
5578 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
5579
5580 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
5581 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
5582 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
5583 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
5584 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
5585
5586 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
5587 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
5588 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
5589 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
5590 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
5591 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
5592 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
5593 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
5594
5595 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
5596 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
5597 '<tt>svn checkout
5598 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
5599 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
5600 devscripts package.</p>
5601
5602 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
5603 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
5604 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
5605 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
5606 instructions</a> for details.</p>
5607
5608       </div>
5609       <div class="tags">
5610
5611
5612         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
5613
5614
5615       </div>
5616     </div>
5617     <div class="padding"></div>
5618
5619     <div class="entry">
5620       <div class="title">
5621         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
5622       </div>
5623       <div class="date">
5624         19th January 2013
5625       </div>
5626       <div class="body">
5627         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
5628 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
5629 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
5630 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
5631 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
5632 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
5633 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
5634 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
5635 not a durable solution.
5636
5637 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
5638 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
5639
5640 <ul>
5641
5642 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
5643   than A4).</li>
5644 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
5645 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
5646 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
5647 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
5648 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
5649 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
5650 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
5651 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
5652 size).</li>
5653 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
5654   X.org packages.</li>
5655 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
5656   the time).
5657
5658 </ul>
5659
5660 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
5661 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
5662 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
5663 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
5664 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
5665 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
5666 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
5667 still be useful.</p>
5668
5669 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
5670 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
5671 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
5672 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
5673 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
5674 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
5675
5676       </div>
5677       <div class="tags">
5678
5679
5680         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>.
5681
5682
5683       </div>
5684     </div>
5685     <div class="padding"></div>
5686
5687     <div class="entry">
5688       <div class="title">
5689         <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>
5690       </div>
5691       <div class="date">
5692         18th January 2013
5693       </div>
5694       <div class="body">
5695         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
5696 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
5697 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
5698 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
5699 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
5700 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
5701 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
5702
5703 <pre>
5704 #!/usr/bin/python
5705 import sys
5706 import apt
5707 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
5708     cache = apt.Cache()
5709     cache.open(None)
5710     thepkgs = []
5711     for pkg in cache:
5712         version = pkg.candidate
5713         if version is None:
5714             version = pkg.installed
5715         if version is None:
5716             continue
5717         record = version.record
5718         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
5719             continue
5720         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
5721         for t in mime_types:
5722             t = t.rstrip().strip()
5723             if t == mimetype:
5724                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
5725     return thepkgs
5726 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
5727 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
5728     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
5729 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
5730 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
5731     print "  %s" %pkg
5732 </pre>
5733
5734 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
5735
5736 <pre>
5737 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
5738 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
5739   gecko-mediaplayer
5740 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
5741 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
5742   browser-plugin-gnash
5743 %
5744 </pre>
5745
5746 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
5747 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
5748 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
5749 anyone working on adding it?</p>
5750
5751 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
5752 request for icweasel support for this feature is
5753 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
5754 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
5755 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
5756 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
5757
5758       </div>
5759       <div class="tags">
5760
5761
5762         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>.
5763
5764
5765       </div>
5766     </div>
5767     <div class="padding"></div>
5768
5769     <div class="entry">
5770       <div class="title">
5771         <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>
5772       </div>
5773       <div class="date">
5774         16th January 2013
5775       </div>
5776       <div class="body">
5777         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
5778 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
5779 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
5780 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
5781 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
5782 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
5783 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
5784 downloaded by the browser.</p>
5785
5786 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
5787 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
5788 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
5789 can be found on the
5790 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
5791 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
5792 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
5793 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
5794 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
5795
5796 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
5797
5798 <pre>
5799   count MIME type
5800   ----- -----------------------
5801      32 text/plain
5802      30 audio/mpeg
5803      29 image/png
5804      28 image/jpeg
5805      27 application/ogg
5806      26 audio/x-mp3
5807      25 image/tiff
5808      25 image/gif
5809      22 image/bmp
5810      22 audio/x-wav
5811      20 audio/x-flac
5812      19 audio/x-mpegurl
5813      18 video/x-ms-asf
5814      18 audio/x-musepack
5815      18 audio/x-mpeg
5816      18 application/x-ogg
5817      17 video/mpeg
5818      17 audio/x-scpls
5819      17 audio/ogg
5820      16 video/x-ms-wmv
5821 </pre>
5822
5823 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
5824
5825 <pre>
5826   count MIME type
5827   ----- -----------------------
5828      33 text/plain
5829      32 image/png
5830      32 image/jpeg
5831      29 audio/mpeg
5832      27 image/gif
5833      26 image/tiff
5834      26 application/ogg
5835      25 audio/x-mp3
5836      22 image/bmp
5837      21 audio/x-wav
5838      19 audio/x-mpegurl
5839      19 audio/x-mpeg
5840      18 video/mpeg
5841      18 audio/x-scpls
5842      18 audio/x-flac
5843      18 application/x-ogg
5844      17 video/x-ms-asf
5845      17 text/html
5846      17 audio/x-musepack
5847      16 image/x-xbitmap
5848 </pre>
5849
5850 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
5851
5852 <pre>
5853   count MIME type
5854   ----- -----------------------
5855      31 text/plain
5856      31 image/png
5857      31 image/jpeg
5858      29 audio/mpeg
5859      28 application/ogg
5860      27 image/gif
5861      26 image/tiff
5862      26 audio/x-mp3
5863      23 audio/x-wav
5864      22 image/bmp
5865      21 audio/x-flac
5866      20 audio/x-mpegurl
5867      19 audio/x-mpeg
5868      18 video/x-ms-asf
5869      18 video/mpeg
5870      18 audio/x-scpls
5871      18 application/x-ogg
5872      17 audio/x-musepack
5873      16 video/x-ms-wmv
5874      16 video/x-msvideo
5875 </pre>
5876
5877 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
5878 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
5879 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
5880 issues.</p>
5881
5882 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
5883 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
5884
5885       </div>
5886       <div class="tags">
5887
5888
5889         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>.
5890
5891
5892       </div>
5893     </div>
5894     <div class="padding"></div>
5895
5896     <div class="entry">
5897       <div class="title">
5898         <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>
5899       </div>
5900       <div class="date">
5901         15th January 2013
5902       </div>
5903       <div class="body">
5904         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
5905 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
5906 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
5907 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
5908 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
5909 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
5910 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
5911 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
5912 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
5913 packages.</p>
5914
5915 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
5916 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
5917 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
5918 modalias.</p>
5919
5920 <p><blockquote>
5921 Package: package-name
5922 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
5923 </blockquote></p>
5924
5925 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
5926 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
5927
5928 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
5929 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
5930
5931 <p><blockquote>
5932 Package: cheese
5933 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
5934 </blockquote></p>
5935
5936 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
5937 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
5938
5939 <p><blockquote>
5940 Package: pcmciautils
5941 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
5942 </blockquote></p>
5943
5944 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
5945 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
5946
5947 <p><blockquote>
5948 Package: colorhug-client
5949 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
5950 </blockquote></p>
5951
5952 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
5953 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
5954 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
5955
5956 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
5957 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
5958 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
5959 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
5960 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
5961 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
5962 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
5963 Raring.</p>
5964
5965 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
5966 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
5967 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
5968 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
5969 try the
5970 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
5971 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
5972 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
5973 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
5974
5975 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
5976 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
5977
5978 <p><blockquote>
5979 % ./hw-support-lookup
5980 <br>yubikey-personalization
5981 <br>%
5982 </blockquote></p>
5983
5984 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
5985 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
5986
5987 <p><blockquote>
5988 % ./hw-support-lookup
5989 <br>pcmciautils
5990 <br>%
5991 </blockquote></p>
5992
5993 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
5994 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
5995 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
5996
5997 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
5998 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
5999 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
6000 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
6001 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
6002 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
6003 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
6004 see if it work.</p>
6005
6006 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
6007 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
6008 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
6009 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
6010
6011       </div>
6012       <div class="tags">
6013
6014
6015         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>.
6016
6017
6018       </div>
6019     </div>
6020     <div class="padding"></div>
6021
6022     <div class="entry">
6023       <div class="title">
6024         <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>
6025       </div>
6026       <div class="date">
6027         14th January 2013
6028       </div>
6029       <div class="body">
6030         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
6031 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
6032 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
6033 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
6034 in
6035 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
6036 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
6037
6038 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
6039
6040 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
6041 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
6042 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
6043 &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;,
6044 &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
6045 &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;.
6046
6047 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
6048 this shell script:</p>
6049
6050 <pre>
6051 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
6052 </pre>
6053
6054 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
6055 using modinfo:</p>
6056
6057 <pre>
6058 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
6059 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
6060 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
6061 %
6062 </pre>
6063
6064 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
6065
6066 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
6067 Bridge memory controller:</p>
6068
6069 <p><blockquote>
6070 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
6071 </blockquote></p>
6072
6073 <p>This represent these values:</p>
6074
6075 <pre>
6076  v   00008086  (vendor)
6077  d   00002770  (device)
6078  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
6079  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
6080  bc  06        (bus class)
6081  sc  00        (bus subclass)
6082  i   00        (interface)
6083 </pre>
6084
6085 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
6086 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
6087 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
6088 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
6089
6090 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
6091 means.</p>
6092
6093 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
6094
6095 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
6096 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
6097
6098 <p><blockquote>
6099 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
6100 </blockquote></p>
6101
6102 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
6103
6104 <pre>
6105  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
6106  p    0001  (device product)
6107  d    0206  (bcddevice)
6108  dc     09  (device class)
6109  dsc    00  (device subclass)
6110  dp     00  (device protocol)
6111  ic     09  (interface class)
6112  isc    00  (interface subclass)
6113  ip     00  (interface protocol)
6114 </pre>
6115
6116 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
6117 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
6118 these alias entries show up:</p>
6119
6120 <p><blockquote>
6121 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
6122 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
6123 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
6124 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
6125 </blockquote></p>
6126
6127 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
6128 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
6129 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
6130
6131 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
6132
6133 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
6134 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
6135
6136 <p><blockquote>
6137 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
6138 </blockquote></p>
6139
6140 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
6141
6142 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
6143
6144 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
6145 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
6146 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
6147
6148 <p><blockquote>
6149 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
6150 </blockquote></p>
6151
6152 <p>The values present are</p>
6153
6154 <pre>
6155  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
6156  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
6157  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
6158  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
6159  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
6160  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
6161  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
6162  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
6163  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
6164  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
6165  ct   10             (chassis type)
6166  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
6167 </pre>
6168
6169 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
6170 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
6171
6172 <pre>
6173   3 Desktop
6174   4 Low Profile Desktop
6175   5 Pizza Box
6176   6 Mini Tower
6177   7 Tower
6178   8 Portable
6179   9 Laptop
6180  10 Notebook
6181  11 Hand Held
6182  12 Docking Station
6183  13 All In One
6184  14 Sub Notebook
6185  15 Space-saving
6186  16 Lunch Box
6187  17 Main Server Chassis
6188  18 Expansion Chassis
6189  19 Sub Chassis
6190  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
6191  21 Peripheral Chassis
6192  22 RAID Chassis
6193  23 Rack Mount Chassis
6194  24 Sealed-case PC
6195  25 Multi-system
6196  26 CompactPCI
6197  27 AdvancedTCA
6198  28 Blade
6199  29 Blade Enclosing
6200 </pre>
6201
6202 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
6203 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
6204 claim it is a desktop.</p>
6205
6206 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
6207
6208 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
6209 test machine:</p>
6210
6211 <p><blockquote>
6212 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
6213 </blockquote></p>
6214
6215 <p>The values present are</p>
6216
6217 <pre>
6218   ty  01  (type)
6219   pr  00  (prototype)
6220   id  00  (id)
6221   ex  00  (extra)
6222 </pre>
6223
6224 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
6225 the valid values are.</p>
6226
6227 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
6228
6229 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
6230 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
6231 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
6232 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
6233 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
6234 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
6235 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
6236
6237 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
6238
6239 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
6240 one can use the following shell script:</p>
6241
6242 <pre>
6243   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
6244     echo "$id" ; \
6245     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
6246   done
6247 </pre>
6248
6249 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
6250 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
6251
6252 <pre>
6253   acpi:ACPI0003:
6254     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
6255   acpi:device:
6256   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
6257   acpi:IBM0068:
6258     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
6259     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
6260     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
6261     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
6262   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
6263     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
6264     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
6265     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
6266   [...]
6267 </pre>
6268
6269 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
6270 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
6271 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
6272 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
6273
6274 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
6275 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
6276 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
6277
6278       </div>
6279       <div class="tags">
6280
6281
6282         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>.
6283
6284
6285       </div>
6286     </div>
6287     <div class="padding"></div>
6288
6289     <div class="entry">
6290       <div class="title">
6291         <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>
6292       </div>
6293       <div class="date">
6294         10th January 2013
6295       </div>
6296       <div class="body">
6297         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
6298 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
6299 Launcher and updated the Debian package
6300 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
6301 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
6302 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
6303 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
6304 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
6305 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
6306 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
6307 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
6308 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
6309 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
6310 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
6311 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
6312 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
6313 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
6314 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
6315
6316       </div>
6317       <div class="tags">
6318
6319
6320         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>.
6321
6322
6323       </div>
6324     </div>
6325     <div class="padding"></div>
6326
6327     <div class="entry">
6328       <div class="title">
6329         <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>
6330       </div>
6331       <div class="date">
6332          9th January 2013
6333       </div>
6334       <div class="body">
6335         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
6336 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
6337 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
6338 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
6339 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
6340 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
6341 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
6342 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
6343 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
6344 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
6345 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
6346
6347 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
6348 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
6349 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
6350 simple:
6351
6352 <ul>
6353
6354 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
6355   starting when a user log in.</li>
6356
6357 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
6358   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
6359
6360 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
6361   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
6362   packages.</li>
6363
6364 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
6365   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
6366
6367 </ul>
6368
6369 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
6370 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
6371 discover database to find packages and
6372 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
6373 packages.</p>
6374
6375 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
6376 draft package is now checked into
6377 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
6378 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
6379 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
6380 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
6381 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
6382 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
6383 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
6384 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
6385 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
6386 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
6387 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
6388 because of the freeze).</p>
6389
6390 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
6391 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
6392 inserted):</p>
6393
6394 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
6395
6396 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
6397 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
6398 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
6399
6400 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
6401 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
6402 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
6403 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
6404 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
6405 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
6406 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
6407
6408 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
6409 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
6410 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
6411 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
6412 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
6413 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
6414 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
6415 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
6416 not be installed?</p>
6417
6418 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
6419 please send me an email. :)</p>
6420
6421       </div>
6422       <div class="tags">
6423
6424
6425         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>.
6426
6427
6428       </div>
6429     </div>
6430     <div class="padding"></div>
6431
6432     <div class="entry">
6433       <div class="title">
6434         <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>
6435       </div>
6436       <div class="date">
6437          2nd January 2013
6438       </div>
6439       <div class="body">
6440         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
6441 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
6442 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
6443 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
6444 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
6445 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
6446 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
6447 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
6448 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
6449 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
6450
6451 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
6452 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
6453 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
6454
6455       </div>
6456       <div class="tags">
6457
6458
6459         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>.
6460
6461
6462       </div>
6463     </div>
6464     <div class="padding"></div>
6465
6466     <div class="entry">
6467       <div class="title">
6468         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
6469       </div>
6470       <div class="date">
6471         28th December 2012
6472       </div>
6473       <div class="body">
6474         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
6475 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
6476 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
6477 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
6478 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
6479 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
6480 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
6481 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
6482 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
6483 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
6484 followed by many others. :)</p>
6485
6486 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
6487 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
6488 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
6489 you want to donate to the project.</p>
6490
6491       </div>
6492       <div class="tags">
6493
6494
6495         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>.
6496
6497
6498       </div>
6499     </div>
6500     <div class="padding"></div>
6501
6502     <div class="entry">
6503       <div class="title">
6504         <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>
6505       </div>
6506       <div class="date">
6507         25th December 2012
6508       </div>
6509       <div class="body">
6510         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
6511 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
6512
6513 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
6514 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
6515 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
6516 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
6517 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
6518 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
6519 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
6520 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
6521 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
6522 name.</p>
6523
6524 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
6525 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
6526 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
6527
6528 <blockquote><pre>
6529 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
6530 cd bitcoin
6531 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
6532 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
6533 </pre></blockquote>
6534
6535 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
6536 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
6537 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
6538 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
6539 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
6540 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
6541 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
6542 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
6543 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
6544
6545 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6546 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6547 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6548
6549       </div>
6550       <div class="tags">
6551
6552
6553         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>.
6554
6555
6556       </div>
6557     </div>
6558     <div class="padding"></div>
6559
6560     <div class="entry">
6561       <div class="title">
6562         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
6563       </div>
6564       <div class="date">
6565         21st December 2012
6566       </div>
6567       <div class="body">
6568         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
6569 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
6570 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
6571 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
6572 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
6573 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
6574 is now maintained by a
6575 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
6576 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
6577 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
6578 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
6579 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
6580 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
6581 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
6582 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
6583 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
6584 Corallo in a
6585 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
6586 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
6587 Debian package.</p>
6588
6589 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
6590 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
6591 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
6592 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
6593 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
6594 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
6595 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
6596 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
6597 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
6598 new version to unstable.
6599
6600 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
6601 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
6602 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
6603 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
6604 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
6605 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
6606 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
6607 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
6608 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
6609 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
6610 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
6611 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
6612 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
6613 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
6614 have not tested them.</p>
6615
6616 <p>My
6617 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
6618 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
6619 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
6620 years ago, as can be
6621 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
6622 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
6623 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
6624 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
6625 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
6626 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
6627 the same address as last time,
6628 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6629
6630       </div>
6631       <div class="tags">
6632
6633
6634         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>.
6635
6636
6637       </div>
6638     </div>
6639     <div class="padding"></div>
6640
6641     <div class="entry">
6642       <div class="title">
6643         <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>
6644       </div>
6645       <div class="date">
6646         18th December 2012
6647       </div>
6648       <div class="body">
6649         <p>A few days ago I came across
6650 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
6651 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
6652 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
6653 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
6654 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
6655 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
6656 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
6657 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
6658 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
6659
6660 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
6661 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
6662 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
6663 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
6664
6665 <blockquote><pre>
6666 2004-05-27 Book Store
6667       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
6668       Liabilities:Visa
6669 </pre></blockquote>
6670
6671 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
6672 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
6673 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
6674 Spang</a>,
6675 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
6676 Keen</a>,
6677 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
6678 Cantino</a> and
6679 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
6680 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
6681 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
6682 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
6683 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
6684
6685 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
6686 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
6687 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
6688 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
6689 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
6690
6691 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
6692 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
6693 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
6694 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
6695 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
6696 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
6697 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
6698 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
6699 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
6700
6701       </div>
6702       <div class="tags">
6703
6704
6705         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>.
6706
6707
6708       </div>
6709     </div>
6710     <div class="padding"></div>
6711
6712     <div class="entry">
6713       <div class="title">
6714         <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>
6715       </div>
6716       <div class="date">
6717          6th December 2012
6718       </div>
6719       <div class="body">
6720         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
6721 Oslo</a>, we use the
6722 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
6723 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
6724 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
6725 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
6726 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
6727 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
6728 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
6729 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
6730 Python.</p>
6731
6732 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
6733 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
6734 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
6735 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
6736 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
6737 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
6738
6739 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
6740 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
6741 user currently logged in:</p>
6742
6743 <blockquote><pre>
6744 #!/usr/bin/env python
6745 import getpass
6746 import xmlrpclib
6747 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
6748 username = getpass.getuser()
6749 password = getpass.getpass()
6750 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
6751 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
6752 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
6753 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
6754 result = server.logout(sessionid)
6755 print result
6756 </pre></blockquote>
6757
6758 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
6759 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
6760
6761       </div>
6762       <div class="tags">
6763
6764
6765         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>.
6766
6767
6768       </div>
6769     </div>
6770     <div class="padding"></div>
6771
6772     <div class="entry">
6773       <div class="title">
6774         <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>
6775       </div>
6776       <div class="date">
6777         17th November 2012
6778       </div>
6779       <div class="body">
6780         <p>While working on a
6781 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
6782 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
6783 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
6784 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
6785 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
6786 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
6787
6788 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
6789 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
6790 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
6791 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
6792 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
6793 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
6794 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
6795 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
6796 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
6797 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
6798 arguments.</p>
6799
6800 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
6801 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
6802 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
6803 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
6804 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
6805 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
6806 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
6807 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
6808
6809 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
6810 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
6811 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
6812 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
6813 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
6814 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
6815 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
6816 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
6817 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
6818 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
6819 correct right holder.</p>
6820
6821 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
6822 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
6823 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
6824 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
6825 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
6826 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
6827 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
6828 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
6829 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
6830 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
6831 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
6832 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
6833 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
6834 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
6835
6836 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
6837 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
6838 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
6839
6840 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
6841 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
6842
6843       </div>
6844       <div class="tags">
6845
6846
6847         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>.
6848
6849
6850       </div>
6851     </div>
6852     <div class="padding"></div>
6853
6854     <div class="entry">
6855       <div class="title">
6856         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
6857       </div>
6858       <div class="date">
6859         14th November 2012
6860       </div>
6861       <div class="body">
6862         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
6863 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
6864 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
6865 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
6866 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
6867 the people behind the German
6868 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
6869 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
6870 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
6871
6872 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6873
6874 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
6875 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
6876 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
6877
6878 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
6879 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
6880 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
6881 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
6882 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
6883 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
6884
6885 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
6886 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
6887 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
6888 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
6889 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
6890 relationship management and the communication processes in the
6891 project.</p>
6892
6893 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
6894 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
6895 and a yoga teacher.</p>
6896
6897 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
6898 project?</strong></p>
6899
6900 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
6901
6902 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
6903 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
6904 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
6905 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
6906 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
6907 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
6908 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
6909 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
6910 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
6911 parents.</p>
6912
6913 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
6914 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
6915 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
6916 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
6917 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
6918 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
6919 Germany.</p>
6920
6921 <p>For information about our school project you can read
6922 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
6923 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
6924
6925 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6926 Edu?</strong></p>
6927
6928 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
6929 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
6930
6931 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
6932 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
6933 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
6934 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
6935 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
6936 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
6937 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
6938 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
6939 teachers, parents...</p>
6940
6941 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6942 Edu?</strong></p>
6943
6944 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
6945 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
6946
6947 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
6948 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
6949 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
6950 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
6951 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
6952
6953 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
6954 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
6955 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
6956 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
6957 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
6958 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
6959 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
6960
6961 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6962
6963 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
6964 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
6965 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
6966 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
6967
6968 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6969 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6970
6971 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
6972 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
6973 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
6974 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
6975 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
6976
6977 <ul>
6978
6979 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
6980 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
6981 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
6982
6983 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
6984 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
6985 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
6986 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
6987 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
6988 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
6989 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
6990
6991 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
6992 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
6993 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
6994 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
6995
6996 </ul>
6997
6998       </div>
6999       <div class="tags">
7000
7001
7002         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>.
7003
7004
7005       </div>
7006     </div>
7007     <div class="padding"></div>
7008
7009     <div class="entry">
7010       <div class="title">
7011         <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>
7012       </div>
7013       <div class="date">
7014          4th November 2012
7015       </div>
7016       <div class="body">
7017         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
7018 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
7019 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
7020 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
7021 see how a member of the bitcoin community
7022 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
7023 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
7024 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
7025 competition.  My thoughts go to the
7026 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
7027 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
7028 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
7029 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
7030 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
7031
7032 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
7033 that the community already seem to have
7034 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
7035 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
7036 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
7037 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
7038 wealth is available.</p>
7039
7040       </div>
7041       <div class="tags">
7042
7043
7044         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>.
7045
7046
7047       </div>
7048     </div>
7049     <div class="padding"></div>
7050
7051     <div class="entry">
7052       <div class="title">
7053         <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>
7054       </div>
7055       <div class="date">
7056         26th October 2012
7057       </div>
7058       <div class="body">
7059         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
7060 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
7061 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
7062 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
7063 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
7064 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
7065 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
7066 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
7067 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
7068 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
7069 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
7070 it every time.</p>
7071
7072 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
7073 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
7074 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
7075 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
7076 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
7077 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
7078 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
7079 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
7080 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
7081 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
7082 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
7083 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
7084
7085 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
7086 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
7087 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
7088 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
7089 article: First the unplanned outage:
7090
7091 <blockquote><pre>
7092 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
7093 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
7094 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
7095 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
7096 Duration:    40 minutes
7097 Scope:       Exchange 2003
7098 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
7099              a cluster failover.
7100
7101 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
7102              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
7103 Technician:  [xxx]
7104 </pre></blockquote>
7105
7106 Next the planned outage:
7107
7108 <blockquote><pre>
7109 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
7110 Severity:    Major (Planned)
7111 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
7112 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
7113 Duration:    10 hours
7114 Scope:       H2 Transport
7115 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
7116              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
7117              4510s.
7118 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
7119              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
7120              connectivity.
7121 Technician:  [xxx]
7122 </pre></blockquote>
7123
7124 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
7125 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
7126 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
7127 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
7128 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
7129 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
7130 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
7131
7132 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
7133 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
7134 university too.  We do register
7135 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
7136 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
7137 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
7138 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
7139 for other sites to consider too?</p>
7140
7141       </div>
7142       <div class="tags">
7143
7144
7145         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>.
7146
7147
7148       </div>
7149     </div>
7150     <div class="padding"></div>
7151
7152     <div class="entry">
7153       <div class="title">
7154         <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>
7155       </div>
7156       <div class="date">
7157         22nd October 2012
7158       </div>
7159       <div class="body">
7160         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
7161 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
7162 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
7163 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
7164 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
7165 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
7166 background information is available in Norwegian from
7167 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
7168 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
7169 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
7170 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
7171 willing to
7172 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
7173 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
7174 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
7175 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
7176 sounded like
7177 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
7178 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
7179 later.</p>
7180
7181 <p>And thought this action is
7182 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
7183 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
7184 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
7185 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
7186 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
7187 rights.</p>
7188
7189 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
7190 unacceptable terms.  For example
7191 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
7192 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
7193 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
7194 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
7195 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
7196
7197 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
7198 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
7199 restored the account of the user, as reported by
7200 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
7201 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
7202 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
7203 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
7204 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
7205 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
7206 reading two opinions from
7207 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
7208 Phipps</a> and
7209 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
7210 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
7211 details about the original story.</p>
7212
7213       </div>
7214       <div class="tags">
7215
7216
7217         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>.
7218
7219
7220       </div>
7221     </div>
7222     <div class="padding"></div>
7223
7224     <div class="entry">
7225       <div class="title">
7226         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
7227       </div>
7228       <div class="date">
7229         18th October 2012
7230       </div>
7231       <div class="body">
7232         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
7233 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
7234 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
7235 across a marvellous drawing by
7236 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
7237 visualising some of what is going on.
7238
7239 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
7240 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
7241
7242 <blockquote>
7243 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
7244 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
7245 </blockquote>
7246
7247 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
7248 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
7249 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
7250 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
7251 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
7252 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
7253
7254       </div>
7255       <div class="tags">
7256
7257
7258         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>.
7259
7260
7261       </div>
7262     </div>
7263     <div class="padding"></div>
7264
7265     <div class="entry">
7266       <div class="title">
7267         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
7268       </div>
7269       <div class="date">
7270         12th October 2012
7271       </div>
7272       <div class="body">
7273         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
7274 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
7275 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
7276 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
7277 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
7278 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
7279 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
7280 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
7281 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
7282 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
7283 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
7284 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
7285 matter".</p>
7286
7287 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
7288 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
7289 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
7290 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
7291 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
7292 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
7293 to argue its side.</p>
7294
7295 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
7296 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
7297 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
7298 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
7299
7300 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
7301 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
7302 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
7303
7304       </div>
7305       <div class="tags">
7306
7307
7308         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>.
7309
7310
7311       </div>
7312     </div>
7313     <div class="padding"></div>
7314
7315     <div class="entry">
7316       <div class="title">
7317         <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>
7318       </div>
7319       <div class="date">
7320          3rd October 2012
7321       </div>
7322       <div class="body">
7323         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
7324 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
7325 the computer science book collection available in his local
7326 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
7327 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
7328 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
7329 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
7330 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
7331 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
7332 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
7333 recently published books.</p>
7334
7335 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
7336 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
7337 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
7338 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
7339 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
7340 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
7341 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
7342 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
7343 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
7344 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
7345 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
7346 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
7347 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
7348 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
7349 for the library that evening.</p>
7350
7351 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
7352 going to know that for example
7353 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
7354 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
7355 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
7356 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
7357 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
7358 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
7359 book right away.</p>
7360
7361       </div>
7362       <div class="tags">
7363
7364
7365         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7366
7367
7368       </div>
7369     </div>
7370     <div class="padding"></div>
7371
7372     <div class="entry">
7373       <div class="title">
7374         <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>
7375       </div>
7376       <div class="date">
7377         23rd September 2012
7378       </div>
7379       <div class="body">
7380         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
7381 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
7382 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
7383 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
7384 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
7385 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
7386
7387 When I started, I
7388 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
7389 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
7390 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
7391 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
7392 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
7393 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
7394 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
7395
7396 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
7397
7398 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
7399 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
7400 the project files currently available from
7401 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
7402
7403 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
7404 the updated
7405 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
7406 and
7407 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
7408 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
7409 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
7410 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
7411
7412       </div>
7413       <div class="tags">
7414
7415
7416         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>.
7417
7418
7419       </div>
7420     </div>
7421     <div class="padding"></div>
7422
7423     <div class="entry">
7424       <div class="title">
7425         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
7426       </div>
7427       <div class="date">
7428         17th September 2012
7429       </div>
7430       <div class="body">
7431         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
7432 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
7433 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
7434 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
7435 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
7436 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
7437 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
7438
7439 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7440
7441 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
7442 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
7443 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
7444 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
7445 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
7446 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
7447 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
7448 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
7449 training is anyway very important</p>
7450
7451 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
7452 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
7453 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
7454 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
7455 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
7456
7457 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7458 project?</strong></p>
7459
7460 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
7461 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
7462 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
7463 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
7464 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
7465 hole.</p>
7466
7467 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7468 Edu?</strong></p>
7469
7470 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
7471 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
7472 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
7473 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
7474 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
7475 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
7476 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
7477 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
7478 hassle.</p>
7479
7480 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7481 Edu?</strong></p>
7482
7483 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
7484 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
7485 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
7486 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
7487 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
7488 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
7489 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
7490 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
7491
7492 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7493
7494 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
7495 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
7496 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
7497 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
7498 has the same...</p>
7499
7500 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
7501 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
7502 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
7503 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
7504
7505 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7506 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7507
7508 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
7509 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
7510 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
7511
7512 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
7513 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
7514 don't.</p>
7515
7516 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
7517 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
7518 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
7519 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
7520 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
7521 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
7522 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
7523
7524       </div>
7525       <div class="tags">
7526
7527
7528         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>.
7529
7530
7531       </div>
7532     </div>
7533     <div class="padding"></div>
7534
7535     <div class="entry">
7536       <div class="title">
7537         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
7538       </div>
7539       <div class="date">
7540         15th September 2012
7541       </div>
7542       <div class="body">
7543         <p>After the
7544 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
7545 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
7546 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
7547 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
7548 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
7549 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
7550 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
7551 was
7552 <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
7553 formal working group should be formed.</p>
7554
7555 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
7556 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
7557 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
7558 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
7559 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
7560 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
7561 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
7562 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
7563
7564 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
7565 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
7566 IETF.</p>
7567
7568       </div>
7569       <div class="tags">
7570
7571
7572         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>.
7573
7574
7575       </div>
7576     </div>
7577     <div class="padding"></div>
7578
7579     <div class="entry">
7580       <div class="title">
7581         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
7582       </div>
7583       <div class="date">
7584         12th September 2012
7585       </div>
7586       <div class="body">
7587         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
7588 publication of of
7589 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
7590 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
7591 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
7592 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
7593 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
7594 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
7595 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
7596 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
7597 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
7598 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
7599
7600 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
7601 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
7602 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
7603 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
7604
7605 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
7606 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
7607
7608       </div>
7609       <div class="tags">
7610
7611
7612         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>.
7613
7614
7615       </div>
7616     </div>
7617     <div class="padding"></div>
7618
7619     <div class="entry">
7620       <div class="title">
7621         <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>
7622       </div>
7623       <div class="date">
7624          7th September 2012
7625       </div>
7626       <div class="body">
7627         <p>As I
7628 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
7629 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
7630 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
7631 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
7632 repository for the project</a>.</p>
7633
7634 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
7635 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
7636 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
7637 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
7638
7639 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
7640 PostScript formats at
7641 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
7642 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
7643
7644       </div>
7645       <div class="tags">
7646
7647
7648         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>.
7649
7650
7651       </div>
7652     </div>
7653     <div class="padding"></div>
7654
7655     <div class="entry">
7656       <div class="title">
7657         <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>
7658       </div>
7659       <div class="date">
7660         23rd August 2012
7661       </div>
7662       <div class="body">
7663         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
7664 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
7665 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
7666 revisit the great site
7667 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
7668 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
7669 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
7670
7671       </div>
7672       <div class="tags">
7673
7674
7675         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>.
7676
7677
7678       </div>
7679     </div>
7680     <div class="padding"></div>
7681
7682     <div class="entry">
7683       <div class="title">
7684         <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>
7685       </div>
7686       <div class="date">
7687         17th August 2012
7688       </div>
7689       <div class="body">
7690         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
7691 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
7692 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
7693 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
7694 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
7695 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
7696 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
7697 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
7698 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
7699 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
7700 summer I
7701 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
7702 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
7703 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
7704
7705 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
7706 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
7707 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
7708 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
7709 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
7710 progress:</p>
7711
7712 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
7713
7714 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
7715 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
7716 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
7717 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
7718 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
7719 english version of the docbook source.</p>
7720
7721 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
7722 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
7723 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
7724 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
7725 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
7726 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
7727 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
7728 project files currently available from <a
7729 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
7730
7731 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
7732 the updated
7733 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
7734 and
7735 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
7736 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
7737 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
7738 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
7739
7740       </div>
7741       <div class="tags">
7742
7743
7744         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>.
7745
7746
7747       </div>
7748     </div>
7749     <div class="padding"></div>
7750
7751     <div class="entry">
7752       <div class="title">
7753         <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>
7754       </div>
7755       <div class="date">
7756         10th August 2012
7757       </div>
7758       <div class="body">
7759         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
7760 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
7761 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
7762 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
7763 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
7764 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
7765 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
7766 case for the language
7767 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
7768 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
7769
7770 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
7771 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
7772 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
7773 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
7774 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
7775
7776 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
7777 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
7778 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
7779 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
7780 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
7781 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
7782 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
7783 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
7784 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
7785 alias for 'nb'.</p>
7786
7787 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
7788 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
7789 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
7790 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
7791 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
7792 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
7793 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
7794 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
7795 at the same time. :(</p>
7796
7797 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
7798 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
7799 processors. :(</p>
7800
7801 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
7802
7803       </div>
7804       <div class="tags">
7805
7806
7807         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>.
7808
7809
7810       </div>
7811     </div>
7812     <div class="padding"></div>
7813
7814     <div class="entry">
7815       <div class="title">
7816         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
7817       </div>
7818       <div class="date">
7819         31st July 2012
7820       </div>
7821       <div class="body">
7822         <p>I tried to send this text to the
7823 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
7824 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
7825 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
7826 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
7827 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
7828 out.</p>
7829
7830 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
7831 learning curve at the moment.</p>
7832
7833 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
7834 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
7835 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
7836 available from
7837 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
7838 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
7839 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
7840 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
7841 Squeeze.</p>
7842
7843 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
7844 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
7845 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
7846 problems.</p>
7847
7848 <ul>
7849
7850 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
7851    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
7852    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
7853    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
7854    index references spanning several pages (See
7855    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
7856    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
7857    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
7858
7859 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
7860    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
7861    #683163</a>).</li>
7862
7863 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
7864    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
7865    footnote and text body, see
7866    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
7867    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
7868    refs listed are not right).</li>
7869
7870 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
7871
7872 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
7873    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
7874
7875 </ul>
7876
7877 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
7878 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
7879 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
7880
7881 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
7882
7883       </div>
7884       <div class="tags">
7885
7886
7887         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>.
7888
7889
7890       </div>
7891     </div>
7892     <div class="padding"></div>
7893
7894     <div class="entry">
7895       <div class="title">
7896         <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>
7897       </div>
7898       <div class="date">
7899         21st July 2012
7900       </div>
7901       <div class="body">
7902         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
7903 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
7904 norwegian version</a> of the book
7905 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
7906 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
7907 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
7908 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
7909 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
7910
7911 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
7912 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
7913 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
7914 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
7915 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
7916 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
7917 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
7918 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
7919 print. :)</p>
7920
7921 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
7922 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
7923 language.</p>
7924
7925       </div>
7926       <div class="tags">
7927
7928
7929         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>.
7930
7931
7932       </div>
7933     </div>
7934     <div class="padding"></div>
7935
7936     <div class="entry">
7937       <div class="title">
7938         <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>
7939       </div>
7940       <div class="date">
7941         16th July 2012
7942       </div>
7943       <div class="body">
7944         <p>I am currently working on a
7945 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
7946 to translate</a> the book
7947 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
7948 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
7949 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
7950 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
7951 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
7952 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
7953 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
7954
7955 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
7956 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
7957 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
7958 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
7959 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
7960 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
7961 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
7962 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
7963 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
7964
7965       </div>
7966       <div class="tags">
7967
7968
7969         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>.
7970
7971
7972       </div>
7973     </div>
7974     <div class="padding"></div>
7975
7976     <div class="entry">
7977       <div class="title">
7978         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
7979       </div>
7980       <div class="date">
7981          9th July 2012
7982       </div>
7983       <div class="body">
7984         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
7985 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
7986 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
7987 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
7988 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
7989 to adjust and scale the just released
7990 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
7991 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
7992 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
7993
7994 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7995
7996 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
7997 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
7998 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
7999 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
8000 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
8001 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
8002 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
8003 perspective when working with IT.</p>
8004
8005 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8006 project?</strong></p>
8007
8008 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
8009 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
8010 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
8011 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
8012 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
8013 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
8014
8015 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8016 Edu?</strong></p>
8017
8018 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
8019 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
8020 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
8021 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
8022 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
8023 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
8024 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
8025 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
8026 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
8027 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
8028 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
8029 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
8030 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
8031 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
8032 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
8033 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
8034 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
8035 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
8036 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
8037 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
8038 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
8039 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
8040 quicker to update.
8041
8042 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8043 Edu?</strong></p>
8044
8045 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
8046 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
8047 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
8048 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
8049 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
8050 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
8051
8052 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
8053 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
8054 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
8055 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
8056 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
8057 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
8058 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
8059 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
8060 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
8061 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
8062 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
8063 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
8064 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
8065 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
8066 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
8067
8068 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
8069 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
8070 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
8071 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
8072 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
8073 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
8074 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
8075 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
8076
8077 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
8078 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
8079 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
8080 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
8081 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
8082 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
8083 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
8084 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
8085 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
8086 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
8087 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
8088 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
8089 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
8090 sound file.</p>
8091
8092 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
8093 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
8094 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
8095 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
8096 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
8097 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
8098 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
8099 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
8100 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
8101
8102 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8103
8104 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
8105 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
8106 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
8107 )</p>
8108
8109 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8110 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8111
8112 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
8113 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
8114 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
8115 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
8116 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
8117 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
8118 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
8119 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
8120 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
8121 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
8122 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
8123 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
8124 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
8125 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
8126 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
8127
8128 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
8129 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
8130 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
8131 management with Airtime</a>,
8132 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
8133 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
8134 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
8135 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
8136 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
8137
8138       </div>
8139       <div class="tags">
8140
8141
8142         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>.
8143
8144
8145       </div>
8146     </div>
8147     <div class="padding"></div>
8148
8149     <div class="entry">
8150       <div class="title">
8151         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
8152       </div>
8153       <div class="date">
8154          8th July 2012
8155       </div>
8156       <div class="body">
8157         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
8158 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
8159 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
8160 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
8161 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
8162 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
8163 Steinberg in his blog post
8164 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
8165 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
8166 spending of your tax money.</p>
8167
8168 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
8169 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
8170 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
8171 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
8172 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
8173 purchases.</p>
8174
8175       </div>
8176       <div class="tags">
8177
8178
8179         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>.
8180
8181
8182       </div>
8183     </div>
8184     <div class="padding"></div>
8185
8186     <div class="entry">
8187       <div class="title">
8188         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
8189       </div>
8190       <div class="date">
8191          7th July 2012
8192       </div>
8193       <div class="body">
8194         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
8195 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
8196 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
8197 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
8198 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
8199 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
8200 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
8201 receive.  The software is
8202
8203 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
8204 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
8205 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
8206 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
8207 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
8208 Windows</a>.</p>
8209
8210 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
8211 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
8212
8213 <p><ul>
8214
8215   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
8216     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
8217
8218   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
8219     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
8220     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
8221     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
8222     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
8223     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
8224     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
8225     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
8226     </li>
8227
8228   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
8229     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
8230
8231   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
8232     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
8233
8234   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
8235     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
8236
8237   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
8238
8239   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
8240     formats </li>
8241
8242   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
8243     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
8244     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
8245     (as separate sets)</li>
8246
8247   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
8248     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
8249     percentage)</li>
8250
8251   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
8252     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
8253     memory):
8254     <ul>
8255       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
8256       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
8257       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
8258       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
8259       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
8260       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
8261       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
8262       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
8263       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
8264       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
8265           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
8266           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
8267           activity)</li>
8268       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
8269       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
8270     </ul></li>
8271
8272   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
8273     <ul>
8274       <li>Break periods</li>
8275       <li>For teacher(s):
8276         <ul>
8277           <li>Not available periods</li>
8278           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
8279           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
8280           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
8281           <li>Min hours daily</li>
8282           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
8283
8284           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
8285             days per week</li>
8286         </ul></li>
8287       <li>For students (sets):
8288         <ul>
8289           <li>Not available periods</li>
8290           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
8291           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
8292           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
8293           <li>Min hours daily</li>
8294           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
8295
8296           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
8297             days per week</li>
8298         </ul></li>
8299       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
8300         <ul>
8301           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
8302           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
8303           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
8304           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
8305           <li>End(s) students day</li>
8306           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
8307           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
8308             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
8309           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
8310           <li>Not overlapping</li>
8311           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
8312           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
8313         </ul></li>
8314     </ul></li>
8315
8316   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
8317     <ul>
8318       <li>Room not available periods</li>
8319       <li>For teacher(s):
8320         <ul>
8321           <li>Home room(s)</li>
8322           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
8323           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
8324         </ul>
8325       </li>
8326
8327       <li>For students (sets):
8328         <ul>
8329           <li>Home room(s)</li>
8330           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
8331           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
8332         </ul>
8333       </li>
8334       <li>Preferred room(s):
8335         <ul>
8336           <li>For a subject</li>
8337           <li>For an activity tag</li>
8338           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
8339           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
8340         </ul>
8341       </li>
8342
8343       <li>For a set of activities:
8344         <ul>
8345           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
8346         </ul>
8347       </li>
8348     </ul>
8349   </li>
8350 </ul></p>
8351
8352 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
8353 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
8354 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
8355 manually, check it out.
8356
8357 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
8358 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
8359 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
8360 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
8361 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
8362 section</a>.</p>
8363
8364       </div>
8365       <div class="tags">
8366
8367
8368         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>.
8369
8370
8371       </div>
8372     </div>
8373     <div class="padding"></div>
8374
8375     <div class="entry">
8376       <div class="title">
8377         <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>
8378       </div>
8379       <div class="date">
8380          3rd July 2012
8381       </div>
8382       <div class="body">
8383         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
8384 project (Norwegian version of
8385 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
8386 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
8387 a problem with the municipalities using
8388 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
8389 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
8390 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
8391 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
8392 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
8393 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
8394 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
8395 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
8396 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
8397 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
8398 the From: header.</p>
8399
8400 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
8401 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
8402 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
8403 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
8404 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
8405 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
8406 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
8407 behaviour.</p>
8408
8409 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
8410 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
8411 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
8412 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
8413 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
8414 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
8415 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
8416
8417       </div>
8418       <div class="tags">
8419
8420
8421         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>.
8422
8423
8424       </div>
8425     </div>
8426     <div class="padding"></div>
8427
8428     <div class="entry">
8429       <div class="title">
8430         <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>
8431       </div>
8432       <div class="date">
8433         26th June 2012
8434       </div>
8435       <div class="body">
8436         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
8437 another interview with the people behind
8438 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
8439 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
8440 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
8441 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
8442 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
8443 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
8444 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
8445
8446 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8447
8448 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
8449 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
8450 ICT in schools</p>
8451
8452 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8453 project?</strong></p>
8454
8455 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
8456 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
8457 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
8458 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
8459
8460 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8461 Edu?</strong></p>
8462
8463 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
8464 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
8465 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
8466 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
8467
8468 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8469 Edu?</strong></p>
8470
8471 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
8472 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
8473 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
8474 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
8475 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
8476 technologies in school.</p>
8477
8478 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8479
8480 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
8481 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
8482 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
8483
8484 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8485 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8486
8487 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
8488 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
8489 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
8490 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
8491
8492 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
8493 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
8494 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
8495
8496 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
8497 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
8498 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
8499 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
8500 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
8501 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
8502 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
8503 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
8504 working there.</p>
8505
8506       </div>
8507       <div class="tags">
8508
8509
8510         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>.
8511
8512
8513       </div>
8514     </div>
8515     <div class="padding"></div>
8516
8517     <div class="entry">
8518       <div class="title">
8519         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
8520       </div>
8521       <div class="date">
8522         24th June 2012
8523       </div>
8524       <div class="body">
8525         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
8526 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
8527 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
8528 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
8529 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
8530 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
8531 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
8532 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
8533 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
8534 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
8535 missing in my book.</p>
8536
8537 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
8538 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
8539 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
8540 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
8541 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
8542 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
8543 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
8544
8545       </div>
8546       <div class="tags">
8547
8548
8549         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>.
8550
8551
8552       </div>
8553     </div>
8554     <div class="padding"></div>
8555
8556     <div class="entry">
8557       <div class="title">
8558         <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>
8559       </div>
8560       <div class="date">
8561         11th June 2012
8562       </div>
8563       <div class="body">
8564         <p>During my work on
8565 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
8566 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
8567 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
8568 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
8569 explanation.</p>
8570
8571 <p><ul>
8572
8573 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
8574 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
8575 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
8576 system depend on tasksel tasks in
8577 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
8578 installation.</li>
8579
8580 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
8581 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
8582 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
8583 at least try to enable it for these services:
8584 <ul>
8585
8586   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
8587     quotas.</li>
8588   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
8589   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
8590   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
8591   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
8592   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
8593
8594 </ul></li>
8595
8596 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
8597 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
8598 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
8599 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
8600
8601 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
8602 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
8603 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
8604
8605 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
8606 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
8607 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
8608 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
8609 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
8610 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
8611
8612 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
8613 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
8614 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
8615 in Wheezy.
8616
8617 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
8618 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
8619 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
8620
8621 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
8622 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
8623 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
8624 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
8625
8626 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
8627 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
8628 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
8629 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
8630
8631 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
8632 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
8633 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
8634
8635 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
8636 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
8637 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
8638
8639 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
8640 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
8641 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
8642 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
8643 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
8644
8645 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
8646 <ul>
8647
8648 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
8649 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
8650 <li>and probably more?</li>
8651 </ul></li>
8652
8653 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
8654 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
8655 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
8656 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
8657 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
8658 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
8659 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
8660 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
8661
8662
8663 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
8664 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
8665 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
8666 use.</li>
8667
8668 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
8669 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
8670 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
8671 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
8672 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
8673
8674 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
8675 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
8676 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
8677 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
8678 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
8679 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
8680
8681 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
8682 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
8683 There are at least three implementations,
8684 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
8685 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
8686 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
8687 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
8688 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
8689 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
8690 given room.</li>
8691
8692 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
8693 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
8694 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
8695 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
8696 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
8697 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
8698 investigated.</li>
8699
8700 </ul></p>
8701
8702 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
8703 version.</p>
8704
8705       </div>
8706       <div class="tags">
8707
8708
8709         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>.
8710
8711
8712       </div>
8713     </div>
8714     <div class="padding"></div>
8715
8716     <div class="entry">
8717       <div class="title">
8718         <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>
8719       </div>
8720       <div class="date">
8721          9th June 2012
8722       </div>
8723       <div class="body">
8724         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
8725 <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
8726 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
8727 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
8728 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
8729 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
8730 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
8731 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
8732 be willing to pay for.</p>
8733
8734 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
8735 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
8736 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
8737 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
8738 Orwell</a>.</p>
8739
8740       </div>
8741       <div class="tags">
8742
8743
8744         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>.
8745
8746
8747       </div>
8748     </div>
8749     <div class="padding"></div>
8750
8751     <div class="entry">
8752       <div class="title">
8753         <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>
8754       </div>
8755       <div class="date">
8756          6th June 2012
8757       </div>
8758       <div class="body">
8759         <p>A few days ago
8760 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
8761 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
8762 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
8763 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
8764 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
8765 code for HP, Dell and IBM
8766 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
8767 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
8768 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
8769 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
8770 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
8771
8772 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
8773 output:
8774
8775 <blockquote><pre>
8776 % 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>
8777 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": ""})
8778 %
8779 </pre></blockquote>
8780
8781 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
8782 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
8783 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
8784
8785       </div>
8786       <div class="tags">
8787
8788
8789         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>.
8790
8791
8792       </div>
8793     </div>
8794     <div class="padding"></div>
8795
8796     <div class="entry">
8797       <div class="title">
8798         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
8799       </div>
8800       <div class="date">
8801          2nd June 2012
8802       </div>
8803       <div class="body">
8804         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
8805 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
8806 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
8807 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
8808 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
8809 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
8810
8811 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8812
8813 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
8814 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
8815 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
8816 by Angela).</p>
8817
8818 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
8819 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
8820 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
8821 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
8822 becoming an osteopath.</p>
8823
8824 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
8825 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
8826 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
8827 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
8828 skills with communication skills.</p>
8829
8830 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8831 project?</strong></p>
8832
8833 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
8834 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
8835 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
8836 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
8837 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
8838
8839 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
8840 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
8841 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
8842 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
8843 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
8844 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
8845 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
8846 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
8847 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
8848
8849 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
8850 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
8851 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
8852
8853 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
8854
8855 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
8856 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
8857 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
8858 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
8859 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
8860 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
8861 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
8862 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
8863 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
8864 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
8865 point.</p>
8866
8867 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
8868 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
8869 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
8870 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
8871 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
8872 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
8873
8874 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
8875 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
8876 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
8877 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
8878 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
8879 spare time.</p>
8880
8881 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
8882 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
8883 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
8884 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
8885 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
8886
8887 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
8888 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
8889 avoidance do exist.</p>
8890
8891 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
8892 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
8893 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
8894 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
8895 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
8896 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
8897 and probably a gain for all.</p>
8898
8899 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8900 Edu?</strong></p>
8901
8902 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
8903 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
8904 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
8905 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
8906 project communication, honest communication within the group of
8907 developers, etc.</p>
8908
8909 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8910 Edu?</strong></p>
8911
8912 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
8913
8914 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
8915 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
8916 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
8917 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
8918 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
8919 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
8920 contribute).</p>
8921
8922 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
8923 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
8924 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
8925 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
8926 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
8927 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
8928 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
8929 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
8930 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
8931 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
8932
8933 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8934
8935 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
8936
8937 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
8938 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
8939 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
8940
8941 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
8942 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
8943 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
8944 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
8945
8946 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
8947 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
8948 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
8949 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
8950 whiteboard.</p>
8951
8952 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
8953
8954 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8955 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8956
8957 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
8958 enrol people.</p>
8959
8960       </div>
8961       <div class="tags">
8962
8963
8964         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>.
8965
8966
8967       </div>
8968     </div>
8969     <div class="padding"></div>
8970
8971     <div class="entry">
8972       <div class="title">
8973         <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>
8974       </div>
8975       <div class="date">
8976          1st June 2012
8977       </div>
8978       <div class="body">
8979         <p>A few years ago I wrote
8980 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
8981 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
8982 I have learned from colleges here at the
8983 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
8984 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
8985 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
8986 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
8987 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
8988
8989 <p><pre>
8990 use strict;
8991 use warnings;
8992 use SOAP::Lite;
8993 use Data::Dumper;
8994 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
8995 my $App = 'test';
8996 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
8997 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
8998 my $s = SOAP::Lite
8999     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
9000     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
9001     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
9002     ;
9003 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
9004     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
9005     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
9006     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
9007 );
9008 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
9009 </pre></p>
9010
9011 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
9012
9013 <p><pre>
9014 $VAR1 = {
9015           'Asset' => {
9016                      'Entitlements' => {
9017                                        'EntitlementData' => [
9018                                                             {
9019                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
9020                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
9021                                                               'Provider' => '',
9022                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
9023                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
9024                                                             },
9025                                                             {
9026                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
9027                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
9028                                                               'Provider' => '',
9029                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
9030                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
9031                                                             },
9032                                                             {
9033                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
9034                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
9035                                                               'Provider' => '',
9036                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
9037                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
9038                                                             }
9039                                                           ]
9040                                      },
9041                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
9042                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
9043                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
9044                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
9045                                           'Buid' => '2323',
9046                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
9047                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
9048                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
9049                                         }
9050                    }
9051         };
9052 </pre></p>
9053
9054 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
9055 service outside the
9056 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
9057 documentation</a>, and according to
9058 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
9059 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
9060 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
9061
9062 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
9063 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
9064
9065       </div>
9066       <div class="tags">
9067
9068
9069         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>.
9070
9071
9072       </div>
9073     </div>
9074     <div class="padding"></div>
9075
9076     <div class="entry">
9077       <div class="title">
9078         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
9079       </div>
9080       <div class="date">
9081         31st May 2012
9082       </div>
9083       <div class="body">
9084         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
9085 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
9086 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
9087 running Debian Squeeze, where
9088 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
9089 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
9090 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
9091 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
9092 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
9093 another day.</p>
9094
9095 <p>After calibration, I get a
9096 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
9097 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
9098 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
9099 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
9100 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
9101 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
9102 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
9103 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
9104 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
9105 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
9106 and a simple</p>
9107
9108 <p><pre>
9109 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
9110 </pre></p>
9111
9112 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
9113 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
9114 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
9115 enough for now.</p>
9116
9117       </div>
9118       <div class="tags">
9119
9120
9121         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9122
9123
9124       </div>
9125     </div>
9126     <div class="padding"></div>
9127
9128     <div class="entry">
9129       <div class="title">
9130         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
9131       </div>
9132       <div class="date">
9133         27th May 2012
9134       </div>
9135       <div class="body">
9136         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
9137 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
9138 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
9139 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
9140 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
9141 since then, helping to make sure the
9142 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
9143 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
9144
9145 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9146
9147 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
9148 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
9149 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
9150 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
9151 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
9152 our computer network.</p>
9153
9154 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
9155 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
9156 (4 months).</p>
9157
9158 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9159 project?</strong></p>
9160
9161 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
9162 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
9163 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
9164 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
9165 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
9166 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
9167 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
9168 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
9169 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
9170 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
9171 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
9172 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
9173 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
9174 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
9175
9176 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9177 Edu?</strong></p>
9178
9179 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
9180 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
9181 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
9182 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
9183 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
9184 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
9185 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
9186 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
9187
9188 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9189 Edu?</strong></p>
9190
9191 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
9192 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
9193 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
9194 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
9195 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
9196 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
9197 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
9198 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
9199 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
9200 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
9201 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
9202 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
9203
9204 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9205
9206 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
9207 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
9208 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
9209
9210 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9211 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9212
9213 <p><ol>
9214
9215 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
9216 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
9217 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
9218 developing.</li>
9219
9220 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
9221 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
9222 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
9223 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
9224 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
9225
9226 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
9227 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
9228 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
9229
9230 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
9231 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
9232 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
9233 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
9234
9235 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
9236 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
9237 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
9238
9239 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
9240
9241 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
9242 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
9243 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
9244 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
9245
9246 </ol></p>
9247
9248       </div>
9249       <div class="tags">
9250
9251
9252         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>.
9253
9254
9255       </div>
9256     </div>
9257     <div class="padding"></div>
9258
9259     <div class="entry">
9260       <div class="title">
9261         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
9262       </div>
9263       <div class="date">
9264         26th May 2012
9265       </div>
9266       <div class="body">
9267         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
9268 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
9269 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
9270 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
9271 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
9272
9273 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
9274 <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>
9275 comment:</p>
9276
9277 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
9278 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
9279 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
9280 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
9281 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
9282 </blockquote></p>
9283
9284 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
9285 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
9286 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
9287 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
9288 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
9289 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
9290 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
9291 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
9292 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
9293 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
9294 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
9295 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
9296 of wasted effort.</p>
9297
9298 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
9299 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
9300 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
9301
9302 <p>See
9303 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
9304 and
9305 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
9306 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
9307 </blockquote></p>
9308
9309       </div>
9310       <div class="tags">
9311
9312
9313         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>.
9314
9315
9316       </div>
9317     </div>
9318     <div class="padding"></div>
9319
9320     <div class="entry">
9321       <div class="title">
9322         <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>
9323       </div>
9324       <div class="date">
9325         18th May 2012
9326       </div>
9327       <div class="body">
9328         <p>In january, I
9329 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
9330 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
9331 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
9332 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
9333 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
9334 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
9335 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
9336 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
9337 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
9338 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
9339
9340 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
9341 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
9342 drivers. :)</p>
9343
9344       </div>
9345       <div class="tags">
9346
9347
9348         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9349
9350
9351       </div>
9352     </div>
9353     <div class="padding"></div>
9354
9355     <div class="entry">
9356       <div class="title">
9357         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
9358       </div>
9359       <div class="date">
9360         13th May 2012
9361       </div>
9362       <div class="body">
9363         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
9364 publish another interview with the people behind
9365 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
9366 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
9367 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
9368 details get right before release.
9369
9370 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9371
9372 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
9373 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
9374 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
9375 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
9376 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
9377 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
9378 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
9379 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
9380
9381 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
9382 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
9383 home since 2006.</p>
9384
9385 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9386 project?</strong></p>
9387
9388 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
9389 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
9390 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
9391 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
9392 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
9393 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
9394
9395 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
9396 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
9397 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
9398 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
9399 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
9400 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
9401 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
9402 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
9403 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
9404 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
9405 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
9406 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
9407 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
9408 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
9409 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
9410 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
9411
9412 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9413 Edu?</strong></p>
9414
9415 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
9416 for me as today.</p>
9417
9418 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
9419
9420 <p><ul>
9421
9422 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
9423 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
9424
9425 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
9426 cost.</li>
9427
9428 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
9429 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
9430 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
9431 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
9432 server</li>
9433
9434 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
9435 school.</li>
9436
9437 </ul></p>
9438
9439 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
9440 came up in this way:</p>
9441
9442 <p><ul>
9443
9444 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
9445 now.</li>
9446
9447 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
9448 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
9449 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
9450
9451 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
9452 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
9453 interfaces used in the past.</li>
9454
9455 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
9456 different needs.</li>
9457
9458 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
9459
9460 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
9461 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
9462 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
9463
9464 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
9465 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
9466
9467 </ul></p>
9468
9469 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9470 Edu?</strong></p>
9471
9472 <p><ul>
9473
9474 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
9475 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
9476 whole municipality areas.</li>
9477
9478 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
9479 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
9480 politicians.</li>
9481
9482 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
9483
9484 </ul></p>
9485
9486 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9487
9488 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
9489 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
9490 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
9491 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
9492 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
9493 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
9494
9495 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
9496 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
9497 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
9498 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
9499 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
9500
9501 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9502 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9503
9504 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
9505 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
9506 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
9507
9508       </div>
9509       <div class="tags">
9510
9511
9512         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>.
9513
9514
9515       </div>
9516     </div>
9517     <div class="padding"></div>
9518
9519     <div class="entry">
9520       <div class="title">
9521         <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>
9522       </div>
9523       <div class="date">
9524         30th April 2012
9525       </div>
9526       <div class="body">
9527         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
9528 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
9529
9530 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
9531 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
9532 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
9533 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
9534 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
9535 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
9536 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
9537 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
9538 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
9539 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
9540 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
9541 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
9542 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
9543 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
9544 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
9545 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
9546
9547 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
9548 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
9549 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
9550 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
9551 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
9552 finally found a Danish supplier
9553 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
9554 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
9555 days ago.</p>
9556
9557 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
9558 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
9559 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
9560 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
9561 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
9562 toys.</p>
9563
9564       </div>
9565       <div class="tags">
9566
9567
9568         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9569
9570
9571       </div>
9572     </div>
9573     <div class="padding"></div>
9574
9575     <div class="entry">
9576       <div class="title">
9577         <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>
9578       </div>
9579       <div class="date">
9580         26th April 2012
9581       </div>
9582       <div class="body">
9583         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
9584 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
9585 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
9586 that the video editor application included with
9587 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
9588 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
9589 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
9590
9591 <p><blockquote>
9592 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
9593 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
9594 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
9595 </blockquote></p>
9596
9597 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
9598
9599 <p><blockquote>
9600 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
9601 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
9602 </blockquote></p>
9603
9604 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
9605 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
9606 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
9607 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
9608 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
9609 video.  AMR is
9610 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
9611 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
9612 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
9613 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
9614 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
9615 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
9616 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
9617
9618 <p>I know why I prefer
9619 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
9620 standards</a> also for video.</p>
9621
9622       </div>
9623       <div class="tags">
9624
9625
9626         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>.
9627
9628
9629       </div>
9630     </div>
9631     <div class="padding"></div>
9632
9633     <div class="entry">
9634       <div class="title">
9635         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
9636       </div>
9637       <div class="date">
9638         19th April 2012
9639       </div>
9640       <div class="body">
9641         <p>Here in Norway, the
9642 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
9643 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
9644 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
9645 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
9646 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
9647 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
9648 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
9649 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
9650 on the same level.</p>
9651
9652 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
9653 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
9654 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
9655 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
9656 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
9657 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
9658 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
9659 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
9660 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
9661 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
9662 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
9663 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
9664 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
9665 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
9666 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
9667 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
9668 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
9669 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
9670
9671 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
9672 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
9673 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
9674 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
9675 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
9676 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
9677 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
9678 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
9679
9680 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
9681 from Simon Phipps
9682 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
9683 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
9684
9685 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
9686 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
9687 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
9688 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
9689 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
9690 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
9691 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
9692 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
9693 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
9694
9695       </div>
9696       <div class="tags">
9697
9698
9699         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>.
9700
9701
9702       </div>
9703     </div>
9704     <div class="padding"></div>
9705
9706     <div class="entry">
9707       <div class="title">
9708         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
9709       </div>
9710       <div class="date">
9711         15th April 2012
9712       </div>
9713       <div class="body">
9714         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
9715 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
9716 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
9717 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
9718 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
9719 up in the recently released
9720 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
9721 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
9722
9723 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9724
9725 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
9726 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
9727 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
9728 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
9729 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
9730 information technology and science/technology.</p>
9731
9732 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9733 project?</strong></p>
9734
9735 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
9736 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
9737 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
9738 contributing.</p>
9739
9740 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9741 Edu?</strong></p>
9742
9743 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
9744 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
9745 Debian Project!</p>
9746
9747 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9748 Edu?</strong></p>
9749
9750 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
9751 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
9752 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
9753 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
9754 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
9755 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
9756 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
9757
9758 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
9759 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
9760
9761 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9762
9763 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
9764 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
9765 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
9766 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
9767
9768 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9769 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9770
9771 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
9772 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
9773 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
9774 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
9775 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
9776 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
9777 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
9778
9779 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
9780 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
9781 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
9782 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
9783 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
9784 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
9785 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
9786 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
9787
9788       </div>
9789       <div class="tags">
9790
9791
9792         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>.
9793
9794
9795       </div>
9796     </div>
9797     <div class="padding"></div>
9798
9799     <div class="entry">
9800       <div class="title">
9801         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
9802       </div>
9803       <div class="date">
9804          8th April 2012
9805       </div>
9806       <div class="body">
9807         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
9808 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
9809 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
9810 contributor to the
9811 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
9812 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
9813
9814 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9815
9816 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
9817 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
9818
9819 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9820 project?</strong></p>
9821
9822 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
9823 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
9824 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
9825 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
9826 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
9827 "localisation".</p>
9828
9829 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9830 Edu?</strong></p>
9831
9832 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9833 Edu?</strong></p>
9834
9835 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
9836 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
9837 education system.</p>
9838
9839 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
9840 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
9841 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
9842 money on the latest hardware.</p>
9843
9844 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9845
9846 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
9847 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
9848 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
9849
9850 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9851 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9852
9853 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
9854 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
9855 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
9856
9857       </div>
9858       <div class="tags">
9859
9860
9861         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>.
9862
9863
9864       </div>
9865     </div>
9866     <div class="padding"></div>
9867
9868     <div class="entry">
9869       <div class="title">
9870         <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>
9871       </div>
9872       <div class="date">
9873          6th April 2012
9874       </div>
9875       <div class="body">
9876         <p>Recently I have spent time with
9877 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
9878 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
9879 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
9880 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
9881 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
9882 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
9883 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
9884 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
9885
9886 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
9887 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
9888 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
9889 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
9890 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
9891 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
9892 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
9893 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
9894
9895 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
9896 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
9897 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
9898 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
9899 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
9900 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
9901 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
9902 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
9903
9904 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
9905 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
9906 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
9907 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
9908 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
9909 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
9910 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
9911 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
9912 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
9913 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
9914
9915 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
9916 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
9917 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
9918 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
9919
9920 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
9921 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
9922
9923       </div>
9924       <div class="tags">
9925
9926
9927         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>.
9928
9929
9930       </div>
9931     </div>
9932     <div class="padding"></div>
9933
9934     <div class="entry">
9935       <div class="title">
9936         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
9937       </div>
9938       <div class="date">
9939          5th April 2012
9940       </div>
9941       <div class="body">
9942         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
9943 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
9944 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
9945 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
9946 for schools.  Check out his article
9947 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
9948 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
9949
9950       </div>
9951       <div class="tags">
9952
9953
9954         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>.
9955
9956
9957       </div>
9958     </div>
9959     <div class="padding"></div>
9960
9961     <div class="entry">
9962       <div class="title">
9963         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
9964       </div>
9965       <div class="date">
9966          1st April 2012
9967       </div>
9968       <div class="body">
9969         <p>Germany is a core area for the
9970 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
9971 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
9972 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
9973
9974 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9975
9976 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
9977 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
9978 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
9979 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
9980 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
9981 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
9982 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
9983 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
9984
9985 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
9986 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
9987 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
9988 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
9989 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
9990 the end of April this year.</p>
9991
9992 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9993 project?</strong></p>
9994
9995 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
9996 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
9997 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
9998 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
9999 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
10000 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
10001 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
10002 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
10003 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
10004 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
10005 Skolelinux.</p>
10006
10007 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
10008 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
10009 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
10010 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
10011 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
10012 the admin teachers.</p>
10013
10014 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10015 Edu?</strong></p>
10016
10017 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
10018 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
10019 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
10020
10021 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
10022 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
10023 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
10024 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
10025 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
10026
10027 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10028 Edu?</strong></p>
10029
10030 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
10031
10032 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10033
10034 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
10035 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
10036 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
10037 LibreOffice.</p>
10038
10039 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10040 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10041
10042 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
10043 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
10044 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
10045
10046       </div>
10047       <div class="tags">
10048
10049
10050         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
10051
10052
10053       </div>
10054     </div>
10055     <div class="padding"></div>
10056
10057     <div class="entry">
10058       <div class="title">
10059         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Checking_email_with_kmail_using_Kerberos_authentication.html">Debian Edu screencast: Checking email with kmail using Kerberos authentication</a>
10060       </div>
10061       <div class="date">
10062         25th March 2012
10063       </div>
10064       <div class="body">
10065         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
10066
10067 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
10068 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
10069 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
10070 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
10071 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
10072 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
10073 and download as a
10074 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
10075 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
10076
10077 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
10078   <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"' />
10079     <p>Download video as
10080       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
10081 </video></p>
10082
10083       </div>
10084       <div class="tags">
10085
10086
10087         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>.
10088
10089
10090       </div>
10091     </div>
10092     <div class="padding"></div>
10093
10094     <div class="entry">
10095       <div class="title">
10096         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
10097       </div>
10098       <div class="date">
10099         19th March 2012
10100       </div>
10101       <div class="body">
10102         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
10103 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
10104 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
10105 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
10106 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
10107
10108 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10109
10110 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
10111 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
10112 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
10113 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
10114 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
10115 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
10116 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
10117 installations.</p>
10118
10119 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10120 project?</strong></p>
10121
10122 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
10123 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
10124 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
10125 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
10126 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
10127 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
10128 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
10129 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
10130 these things we decided to try it.</p>
10131
10132 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10133 Edu?</strong></p>
10134
10135 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
10136 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
10137 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
10138 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
10139 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
10140 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
10141 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
10142 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
10143
10144 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10145 Edu?</strong></p>
10146
10147 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
10148 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
10149 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
10150 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
10151 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
10152
10153 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10154
10155 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
10156 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
10157 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
10158 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
10159 that counts...)</p>
10160
10161 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10162 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10163
10164 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
10165 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
10166 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
10167 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
10168 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
10169 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
10170 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
10171 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
10172 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
10173 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
10174 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
10175
10176 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
10177 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
10178 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
10179
10180       </div>
10181       <div class="tags">
10182
10183
10184         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>.
10185
10186
10187       </div>
10188     </div>
10189     <div class="padding"></div>
10190
10191     <div class="entry">
10192       <div class="title">
10193         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
10194       </div>
10195       <div class="date">
10196         16th March 2012
10197       </div>
10198       <div class="body">
10199         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
10200 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
10201 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
10202 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
10203
10204 <ol>
10205
10206 <li>The documentation is written in a
10207 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
10208 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
10209 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
10210 docbook XML.</li>
10211
10212 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
10213 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
10214 with the translated text.</li>
10215
10216 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
10217 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
10218 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
10219 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
10220 images.</li>
10221
10222 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
10223 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
10224
10225 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
10226 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
10227
10228 </ol>
10229
10230 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
10231 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
10232 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
10233 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
10234 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
10235
10236 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
10237 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
10238 package</a>.</p>
10239
10240       </div>
10241       <div class="tags">
10242
10243
10244         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>.
10245
10246
10247       </div>
10248     </div>
10249     <div class="padding"></div>
10250
10251     <div class="entry">
10252       <div class="title">
10253         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
10254       </div>
10255       <div class="date">
10256         11th March 2012
10257       </div>
10258       <div class="body">
10259         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
10260 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
10261 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
10262 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
10263 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
10264 you have not done so already.</p>
10265
10266 <p>I plan to present the new version at
10267 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
10268 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
10269 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
10270
10271       </div>
10272       <div class="tags">
10273
10274
10275         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>.
10276
10277
10278       </div>
10279     </div>
10280     <div class="padding"></div>
10281
10282     <div class="entry">
10283       <div class="title">
10284         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
10285       </div>
10286       <div class="date">
10287          9th March 2012
10288       </div>
10289       <div class="body">
10290         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
10291 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
10292 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
10293 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
10294 more international audience.</p>
10295
10296 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
10297 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
10298 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
10299 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
10300 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
10301 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
10302 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
10303
10304
10305 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10306
10307 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
10308 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
10309 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
10310 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
10311 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
10312 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
10313 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
10314 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
10315 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
10316 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
10317 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
10318
10319 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10320 project?</strong></p>
10321
10322 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
10323 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
10324 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
10325 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
10326 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
10327 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
10328 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
10329 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
10330 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
10331 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
10332 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
10333 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
10334 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
10335
10336 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10337 Edu?</strong></p>
10338
10339 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
10340 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
10341 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
10342 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
10343 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
10344 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
10345 Japan.</p>
10346
10347 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10348 Edu?</strong></p>
10349
10350 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
10351 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
10352 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
10353 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
10354 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
10355 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
10356 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
10357 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
10358 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
10359 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
10360 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
10361 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
10362 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
10363 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
10364 help.</p>
10365
10366 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10367
10368 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
10369 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
10370 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
10371 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
10372 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
10373 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
10374 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
10375 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
10376 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
10377 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
10378 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
10379
10380 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10381 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10382
10383 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
10384 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
10385 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
10386 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
10387 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
10388 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
10389 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
10390 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
10391 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
10392 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
10393 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
10394 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
10395
10396       </div>
10397       <div class="tags">
10398
10399
10400         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>.
10401
10402
10403       </div>
10404     </div>
10405     <div class="padding"></div>
10406
10407     <div class="entry">
10408       <div class="title">
10409         <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>
10410       </div>
10411       <div class="date">
10412          7th March 2012
10413       </div>
10414       <div class="body">
10415         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
10416
10417 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
10418 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
10419 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
10420 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
10421 download as a
10422 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
10423 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
10424
10425 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
10426   <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"' />
10427     <p>Download video as
10428       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
10429 </video></p>
10430
10431       </div>
10432       <div class="tags">
10433
10434
10435         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>.
10436
10437
10438       </div>
10439     </div>
10440     <div class="padding"></div>
10441
10442     <div class="entry">
10443       <div class="title">
10444         <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>
10445       </div>
10446       <div class="date">
10447          4th March 2012
10448       </div>
10449       <div class="body">
10450         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
10451 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
10452 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
10453 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
10454 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
10455 need a software solution for your school.</p>
10456
10457       </div>
10458       <div class="tags">
10459
10460
10461         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>.
10462
10463
10464       </div>
10465     </div>
10466     <div class="padding"></div>
10467
10468     <div class="entry">
10469       <div class="title">
10470         <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>
10471       </div>
10472       <div class="date">
10473          3rd March 2012
10474       </div>
10475       <div class="body">
10476         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
10477 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
10478 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
10479 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
10480 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
10481 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
10482 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
10483 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
10484 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
10485 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
10486 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
10487 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
10488 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
10489 year...</p>
10490
10491 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
10492 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
10493 name,
10494 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
10495 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
10496 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
10497 mean). I've been following
10498 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
10499 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
10500 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
10501 Check it out. :)</p>
10502
10503       </div>
10504       <div class="tags">
10505
10506
10507         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>.
10508
10509
10510       </div>
10511     </div>
10512     <div class="padding"></div>
10513
10514     <div class="entry">
10515       <div class="title">
10516         <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>
10517       </div>
10518       <div class="date">
10519         27th February 2012
10520       </div>
10521       <div class="body">
10522         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
10523 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
10524 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
10525 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
10526 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
10527 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
10528 need a software solution for your school.</p>
10529
10530       </div>
10531       <div class="tags">
10532
10533
10534         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>.
10535
10536
10537       </div>
10538     </div>
10539     <div class="padding"></div>
10540
10541     <div class="entry">
10542       <div class="title">
10543         <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>
10544       </div>
10545       <div class="date">
10546         19th February 2012
10547       </div>
10548       <div class="body">
10549         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
10550 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
10551 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
10552 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
10553 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
10554 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
10555 solution for your school.</p>
10556
10557       </div>
10558       <div class="tags">
10559
10560
10561         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>.
10562
10563
10564       </div>
10565     </div>
10566     <div class="padding"></div>
10567
10568     <div class="entry">
10569       <div class="title">
10570         <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>
10571       </div>
10572       <div class="date">
10573         14th February 2012
10574       </div>
10575       <div class="body">
10576         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
10577 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
10578 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
10579 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
10580 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
10581 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
10582 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
10583 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
10584 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
10585
10586 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
10587 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
10588 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
10589 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
10590 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
10591
10592 <blockquote><pre>
10593 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
10594 do
10595     printf "Failed disk $d: "
10596     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
10597 done
10598 </blockquote></pre>
10599
10600 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
10601 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
10602
10603 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
10604
10605 <blockquote><pre>
10606 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
10607 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
10608 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
10609 </blockquote></pre>
10610
10611 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
10612 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
10613 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
10614 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
10615 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
10616 mounted inside my box.</p>
10617
10618 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
10619 Software RAID in the
10620 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
10621 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
10622 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
10623 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
10624 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
10625 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
10626
10627       </div>
10628       <div class="tags">
10629
10630
10631         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>.
10632
10633
10634       </div>
10635     </div>
10636     <div class="padding"></div>
10637
10638     <div class="entry">
10639       <div class="title">
10640         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
10641       </div>
10642       <div class="date">
10643         13th February 2012
10644       </div>
10645       <div class="body">
10646         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
10647 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
10648 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
10649 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
10650 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
10651 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
10652 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
10653 change the global proxy setting by editing
10654 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
10655 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
10656
10657 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
10658 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
10659 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
10660
10661 <blockquote><pre>
10662 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
10663 {
10664    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
10665        isPlainHostName(host) ||
10666        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
10667       return "DIRECT";
10668    else
10669       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
10670 }
10671 </pre></blockquote>
10672
10673 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
10674
10675 <blockquote><pre>
10676 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
10677 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
10678 </pre></blockquote>
10679
10680 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
10681 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
10682 would be used for
10683 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
10684 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
10685 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
10686 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
10687 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
10688 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
10689 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
10690 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
10691 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
10692 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
10693
10694 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
10695 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
10696 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
10697 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
10698 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
10699 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
10700
10701 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
10702 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
10703 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
10704 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
10705 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
10706 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
10707 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
10708 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
10709 the network setup changes.</p>
10710
10711 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
10712 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
10713 draft</a> and a
10714 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
10715 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
10716
10717       </div>
10718       <div class="tags">
10719
10720
10721         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>.
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/Saving_power_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_using_shutdown_at_night.html">Saving power with Debian Edu / Skolelinux using shutdown-at-night</a>
10731       </div>
10732       <div class="date">
10733          5th February 2012
10734       </div>
10735       <div class="body">
10736         <p>Since the Lenny version of
10737 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
10738 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
10739 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
10740 in the morning.  This is done using the
10741 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
10742
10743 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
10744 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
10745 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
10746 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
10747 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
10748 the
10749 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
10750 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
10751 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
10752 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
10753 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
10754
10755 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
10756 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
10757 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
10758 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
10759 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
10760 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
10761 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
10762
10763 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
10764 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
10765 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
10766 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
10767 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
10768
10769       </div>
10770       <div class="tags">
10771
10772
10773         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>.
10774
10775
10776       </div>
10777     </div>
10778     <div class="padding"></div>
10779
10780     <div class="entry">
10781       <div class="title">
10782         <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>
10783       </div>
10784       <div class="date">
10785          4th February 2012
10786       </div>
10787       <div class="body">
10788         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
10789 publish the third beta version of
10790 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
10791 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
10792 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
10793 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
10794 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
10795 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
10796 on the project announcement list.</p>
10797
10798 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
10799 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
10800
10801 <ul>
10802
10803 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
10804   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
10805   the installation.</li>
10806
10807 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
10808   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
10809
10810 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
10811   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
10812   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
10813
10814 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
10815   for the local system administrator is created during installation
10816   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
10817   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
10818   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
10819   up to date on the system.</li>
10820
10821 </ul>
10822
10823 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
10824 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
10825 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
10826 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
10827
10828 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
10829 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
10830 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
10831 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
10832 will see you there?</p>
10833
10834       </div>
10835       <div class="tags">
10836
10837
10838         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>.
10839
10840
10841       </div>
10842     </div>
10843     <div class="padding"></div>
10844
10845     <div class="entry">
10846       <div class="title">
10847         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Handling_non_free_firmware_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Handling non-free firmware in Debian Edu/Squeeze</a>
10848       </div>
10849       <div class="date">
10850         27th January 2012
10851       </div>
10852       <div class="body">
10853         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
10854 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
10855 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
10856 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
10857 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
10858 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
10859 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
10860
10861 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
10862 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
10863 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
10864 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
10865 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
10866 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
10867 not taken care of by this.</p>
10868
10869 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
10870 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
10871 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
10872 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
10873 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
10874 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
10875 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
10876 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
10877 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
10878 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
10879 firmware packages.</p>
10880
10881 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
10882 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
10883 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
10884 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
10885 initrd with extra firmware, the
10886 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
10887 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
10888 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
10889
10890 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
10891 network cards working.  For this,
10892 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
10893 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
10894 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
10895
10896 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
10897 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
10898 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
10899
10900 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
10901 try.</p>
10902
10903       </div>
10904       <div class="tags">
10905
10906
10907         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>.
10908
10909
10910       </div>
10911     </div>
10912     <div class="padding"></div>
10913
10914     <div class="entry">
10915       <div class="title">
10916         <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>
10917       </div>
10918       <div class="date">
10919         25th January 2012
10920       </div>
10921       <div class="body">
10922         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
10923 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
10924 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
10925 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
10926 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
10927
10928 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
10929 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
10930 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
10931 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
10932 this is done, log on to the central server and run
10933 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
10934 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
10935 will look similar to this:</p>
10936
10937 <p><blockquote><pre>
10938 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
10939 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
10940 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.
10941
10942 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
10943
10944 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10945 enter password: *******
10946 %
10947 </pre></blockquote></p>
10948
10949 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
10950 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
10951 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
10952 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
10953 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
10954 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
10955 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
10956 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
10957 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
10958 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
10959 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
10960 automatically.</p>
10961
10962 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
10963 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
10964
10965 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
10966 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
10967 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
10968
10969       </div>
10970       <div class="tags">
10971
10972
10973         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>.
10974
10975
10976       </div>
10977     </div>
10978     <div class="padding"></div>
10979
10980     <div class="entry">
10981       <div class="title">
10982         <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>
10983       </div>
10984       <div class="date">
10985         10th January 2012
10986       </div>
10987       <div class="body">
10988         <p>In the Squeeze version of
10989 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
10990 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
10991 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
10992 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
10993 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
10994 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
10995 first time.</p>
10996
10997 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
10998 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
10999 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
11000 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
11001
11002 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
11003 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
11004 new setting.</p>
11005
11006 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
11007 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
11008 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
11009
11010       </div>
11011       <div class="tags">
11012
11013
11014         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>.
11015
11016
11017       </div>
11018     </div>
11019     <div class="padding"></div>
11020
11021     <div class="entry">
11022       <div class="title">
11023         <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>
11024       </div>
11025       <div class="date">
11026          7th January 2012
11027       </div>
11028       <div class="body">
11029         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
11030 the second beta version of
11031 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
11032 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
11033 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
11034 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
11035 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
11036 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
11037 on the project announcement list.</p>
11038
11039       </div>
11040       <div class="tags">
11041
11042
11043         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>.
11044
11045
11046       </div>
11047     </div>
11048     <div class="padding"></div>
11049
11050     <div class="entry">
11051       <div class="title">
11052         <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>
11053       </div>
11054       <div class="date">
11055          3rd January 2012
11056       </div>
11057       <div class="body">
11058         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
11059 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
11060 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
11061 interesting.</p>
11062
11063 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
11064 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
11065 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
11066 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
11067 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
11068 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
11069 wrap up its tasks.</p>
11070
11071 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
11072 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
11073 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
11074 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
11075 because I was typing.</P>
11076
11077 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
11078 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
11079 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
11080 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
11081 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
11082 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
11083 generate entropy.</p>
11084
11085 <p>The fix is in
11086 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
11087 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
11088 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
11089 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
11090
11091       </div>
11092       <div class="tags">
11093
11094
11095         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>.
11096
11097
11098       </div>
11099     </div>
11100     <div class="padding"></div>
11101
11102     <div class="entry">
11103       <div class="title">
11104         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
11105       </div>
11106       <div class="date">
11107         21st November 2011
11108       </div>
11109       <div class="body">
11110         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
11111 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
11112 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
11113 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
11114 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
11115 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
11116 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
11117 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
11118 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
11119 the tools to do so.</p>
11120
11121 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
11122 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
11123 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
11124 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
11125
11126 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
11127 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
11128 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
11129 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
11130 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
11131 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
11132 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
11133 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
11134
11135 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
11136 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
11137 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
11138
11139 <p><pre>
11140 #!/usr/bin/perl
11141 use strict;
11142 use warnings;
11143 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
11144 BEGIN {
11145     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
11146     my %rhelmodules = (
11147         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
11148         );
11149     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
11150         eval "use $module;";
11151         if ($@) {
11152             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
11153             system("yum install -y $pkg");
11154             eval "use $module;";
11155         }
11156     }
11157 }
11158 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
11159
11160 upgrade_dell();
11161
11162 exit 0;
11163
11164 sub run_firmware_script {
11165     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
11166     unless ($script) {
11167         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
11168         exit 1
11169     }
11170     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
11171
11172     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
11173         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
11174     } else {
11175         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
11176     }
11177 }
11178
11179 sub run_firmware_scripts {
11180     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
11181     # Run firmware packages
11182     for my $dir (@dirs) {
11183         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
11184         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
11185         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
11186             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
11187             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
11188         }
11189         closedir $dh;
11190     }
11191 }
11192
11193 sub download {
11194     my $url = shift;
11195     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
11196     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
11197 }
11198
11199 sub upgrade_dell {
11200     my @dirs;
11201     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
11202     chomp $product;
11203
11204     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
11205
11206         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
11207         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
11208
11209         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
11210             CLEANUP => 1
11211             );
11212         chdir($tmpdir);
11213         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
11214         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
11215         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
11216         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
11217         my $fwopts = "-q";
11218         if (@paths) {
11219             for my $url (@paths) {
11220                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
11221             }
11222             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
11223         } else {
11224             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
11225             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
11226         }
11227         chdir('/');
11228     } else {
11229         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
11230         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
11231     }
11232 }
11233
11234 sub fetch_dell_fw {
11235     my $path = shift;
11236     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
11237     download($url);
11238 }
11239
11240 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
11241 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
11242 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
11243 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
11244     my $filename = shift;
11245
11246     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
11247     chomp $product;
11248     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
11249
11250     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
11251
11252     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
11253     my @paths;
11254     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
11255         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
11256         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
11257         my $oscode;
11258         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
11259             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
11260         } else {
11261             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
11262         }
11263         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
11264         {
11265             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
11266         }
11267     }
11268     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
11269         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
11270
11271         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
11272         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
11273
11274         my $cpath = $component->{path};
11275         for my $path (@paths) {
11276             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
11277                 push(@paths, $cpath);
11278             }
11279         }
11280     }
11281     return @paths;
11282 }
11283 </pre>
11284
11285 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
11286 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
11287 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
11288 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
11289 outdated.</p>
11290
11291       </div>
11292       <div class="tags">
11293
11294
11295         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>.
11296
11297
11298       </div>
11299     </div>
11300     <div class="padding"></div>
11301
11302     <div class="entry">
11303       <div class="title">
11304         <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>
11305       </div>
11306       <div class="date">
11307          7th October 2011
11308       </div>
11309       <div class="body">
11310         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
11311 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
11312 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
11313 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
11314 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
11315 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
11316 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
11317 models.</p>
11318
11319 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
11320 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
11321 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
11322 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
11323
11324 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
11325 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
11326 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
11327 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
11328 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
11329 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
11330 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
11331 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
11332 distributed.</p>
11333
11334 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
11335
11336 <ul>
11337
11338 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
11339   other relevant equipment.</li>
11340
11341 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
11342
11343 </ul>
11344
11345 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
11346 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
11347 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
11348 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
11349 books available.</p>
11350
11351 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
11352 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
11353 libraries. :)</p>
11354
11355       </div>
11356       <div class="tags">
11357
11358
11359         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>.
11360
11361
11362       </div>
11363     </div>
11364     <div class="padding"></div>
11365
11366     <div class="entry">
11367       <div class="title">
11368         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
11369       </div>
11370       <div class="date">
11371         17th September 2011
11372       </div>
11373       <div class="body">
11374         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
11375 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
11376 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
11377 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
11378 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
11379 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
11380 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
11381 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
11382
11383 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
11384
11385 <blockquote><pre>
11386 #!/bin/sh
11387 # apt-get install lsdvd
11388 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
11389 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
11390 </pre></blockquote>
11391
11392 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
11393 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
11394 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
11395 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
11396
11397 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
11398 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
11399 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
11400 back as an ISO.
11401
11402 <blockquote><pre>
11403 #!/bin/sh
11404 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
11405 set -e
11406 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
11407 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
11408 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
11409 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
11410 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
11411 </pre></blockquote>
11412
11413 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
11414
11415 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
11416 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
11417 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
11418 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
11419 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
11420
11421 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
11422 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
11423 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
11424 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
11425 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
11426 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
11427
11428       </div>
11429       <div class="tags">
11430
11431
11432         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>.
11433
11434
11435       </div>
11436     </div>
11437     <div class="padding"></div>
11438
11439     <div class="entry">
11440       <div class="title">
11441         <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>
11442       </div>
11443       <div class="date">
11444          4th August 2011
11445       </div>
11446       <div class="body">
11447         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
11448 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
11449 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
11450 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
11451 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
11452 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
11453 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
11454 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
11455 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
11456
11457 <p><blockquote>
11458 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
11459 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
11460 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
11461 </blockquote></p>
11462
11463 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
11464 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
11465 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
11466 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
11467 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
11468 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
11469 hard to explain.</p>
11470
11471 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
11472 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
11473 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
11474 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
11475 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
11476 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
11477 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
11478 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
11479 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
11480 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
11481 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
11482 mode).</p>
11483
11484 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
11485 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
11486 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
11487 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
11488 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
11489 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
11490 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
11491 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
11492 after visiting single user mode.</p>
11493
11494 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
11495 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
11496 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
11497 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
11498 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
11499 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
11500 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
11501 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
11502
11503 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
11504 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
11505 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
11506
11507       </div>
11508       <div class="tags">
11509
11510
11511         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>.
11512
11513
11514       </div>
11515     </div>
11516     <div class="padding"></div>
11517
11518     <div class="entry">
11519       <div class="title">
11520         <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>
11521       </div>
11522       <div class="date">
11523         30th July 2011
11524       </div>
11525       <div class="body">
11526         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
11527 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
11528 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
11529 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
11530 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
11531 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
11532 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
11533 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
11534 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
11535 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
11536 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
11537 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
11538 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
11539
11540 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
11541 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
11542 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
11543 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
11544 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
11545 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
11546 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
11547 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
11548 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
11549
11550 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
11551 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
11552 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
11553 is presented.</p>
11554
11555 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
11556 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
11557 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
11558 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
11559 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
11560 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
11561 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
11562 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
11563 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
11564 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
11565 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
11566 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
11567 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
11568 find time to push this forward.</p>
11569
11570       </div>
11571       <div class="tags">
11572
11573
11574         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>.
11575
11576
11577       </div>
11578     </div>
11579     <div class="padding"></div>
11580
11581     <div class="entry">
11582       <div class="title">
11583         <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>
11584       </div>
11585       <div class="date">
11586         29th July 2011
11587       </div>
11588       <div class="body">
11589         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
11590 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
11591 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
11592 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
11593 issues.</p>
11594
11595 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
11596 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
11597 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
11598
11599 <ol>
11600
11601 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
11602 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
11603 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
11604 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
11605 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
11606 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
11607 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
11608 Debian.</li>
11609
11610 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
11611 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
11612 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
11613 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
11614 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
11615 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
11616 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
11617 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
11618 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
11619 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
11620 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
11621 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
11622 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
11623
11624 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
11625 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
11626 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
11627 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
11628 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
11629 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
11630 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
11631 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
11632 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
11633 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
11634
11635 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
11636 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
11637 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
11638 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
11639 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
11640 latter behaviour.</li>
11641
11642 </ol>
11643
11644 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
11645 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
11646 it do not matter much.</p>
11647
11648 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
11649 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
11650 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
11651
11652       </div>
11653       <div class="tags">
11654
11655
11656         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>.
11657
11658
11659       </div>
11660     </div>
11661     <div class="padding"></div>
11662
11663     <div class="entry">
11664       <div class="title">
11665         <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>
11666       </div>
11667       <div class="date">
11668         26th July 2011
11669       </div>
11670       <div class="body">
11671         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
11672 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
11673 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
11674 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
11675 security support for a few years.</p>
11676
11677 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
11678 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
11679 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
11680 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
11681 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
11682 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
11683 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
11684 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
11685 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
11686 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
11687 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
11688 easier in the future.</p>
11689
11690 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
11691 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
11692 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
11693 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
11694 do not have time for.</p>
11695
11696       </div>
11697       <div class="tags">
11698
11699
11700         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>.
11701
11702
11703       </div>
11704     </div>
11705     <div class="padding"></div>
11706
11707     <div class="entry">
11708       <div class="title">
11709         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
11710       </div>
11711       <div class="date">
11712         20th June 2011
11713       </div>
11714       <div class="body">
11715         <p>Reading
11716 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
11717 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
11718 parts of the
11719 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
11720 and
11721 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
11722 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
11723 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
11724 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
11725
11726       </div>
11727       <div class="tags">
11728
11729
11730         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>.
11731
11732
11733       </div>
11734     </div>
11735     <div class="padding"></div>
11736
11737     <div class="entry">
11738       <div class="title">
11739         <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>
11740       </div>
11741       <div class="date">
11742         30th April 2011
11743       </div>
11744       <div class="body">
11745         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
11746 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
11747 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
11748 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
11749 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
11750 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
11751 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
11752 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
11753 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
11754 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
11755
11756 <p>Where is it?  Visit
11757 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
11758 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
11759 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
11760 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
11761
11762       </div>
11763       <div class="tags">
11764
11765
11766         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>.
11767
11768
11769       </div>
11770     </div>
11771     <div class="padding"></div>
11772
11773     <div class="entry">
11774       <div class="title">
11775         <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>
11776       </div>
11777       <div class="date">
11778         29th April 2011
11779       </div>
11780       <div class="body">
11781         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
11782 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
11783 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
11784 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
11785 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
11786 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
11787 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
11788 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
11789 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
11790 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
11791 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
11792 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
11793 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
11794
11795 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
11796 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
11797 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
11798 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
11799 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
11800 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
11801 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
11802 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
11803 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
11804 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
11805 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
11806 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
11807 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
11808
11809 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
11810 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
11811 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
11812 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
11813 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
11814 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
11815 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
11816 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
11817 it.</p>
11818
11819 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
11820 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
11821 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
11822 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
11823 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
11824 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
11825 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
11826
11827 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
11828 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
11829 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
11830 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
11831 and range= options.</p>
11832
11833 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
11834 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
11835 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
11836 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
11837 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
11838 to best handle this.  I've noticed
11839 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
11840 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
11841 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
11842 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
11843
11844 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
11845 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
11846 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
11847 discussions instead of only
11848 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
11849 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
11850 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
11851 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
11852 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
11853 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
11854
11855       </div>
11856       <div class="tags">
11857
11858
11859         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>.
11860
11861
11862       </div>
11863     </div>
11864     <div class="padding"></div>
11865
11866     <div class="entry">
11867       <div class="title">
11868         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
11869       </div>
11870       <div class="date">
11871          6th April 2011
11872       </div>
11873       <div class="body">
11874         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
11875 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
11876 A few days ago the project
11877 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
11878 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
11879 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
11880 into Gnash.</p>
11881
11882       </div>
11883       <div class="tags">
11884
11885
11886         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>.
11887
11888
11889       </div>
11890     </div>
11891     <div class="padding"></div>
11892
11893     <div class="entry">
11894       <div class="title">
11895         <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>
11896       </div>
11897       <div class="date">
11898          3rd April 2011
11899       </div>
11900       <div class="body">
11901         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
11902 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
11903 update in English.</p>
11904
11905 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
11906 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
11907 of the British service
11908 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
11909 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
11910 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
11911 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
11912 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
11913 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
11914 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
11915 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
11916 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
11917 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
11918 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
11919 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
11920 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
11921
11922 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
11923 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
11924 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
11925 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
11926 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
11927 public infrastructure.</p>
11928
11929 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
11930 such service?</p>
11931
11932       </div>
11933       <div class="tags">
11934
11935
11936         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>.
11937
11938
11939       </div>
11940     </div>
11941     <div class="padding"></div>
11942
11943     <div class="entry">
11944       <div class="title">
11945         <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>
11946       </div>
11947       <div class="date">
11948         28th January 2011
11949       </div>
11950       <div class="body">
11951         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
11952 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
11953 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
11954 available on the Internet, and check our locally
11955 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
11956 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
11957 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
11958 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
11959 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
11960 out which security holes were present in our free software
11961 collection.</p>
11962
11963 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
11964 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
11965 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
11966 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
11967 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
11968 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
11969 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
11970 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
11971 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
11972 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
11973 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
11974 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
11975 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
11976 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
11977 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
11978 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
11979
11980 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
11981 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
11982 check out, one could look up
11983 <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
11984 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
11985 The most recent one is
11986 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
11987 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
11988 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
11989
11990 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
11991 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
11992 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
11993 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
11994 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
11995 security issues out.</p>
11996
11997 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
11998 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
11999 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
12000 RHEL is providing
12001 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
12002 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
12003 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
12004
12005 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
12006 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
12007 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
12008 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
12009 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
12010 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
12011 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
12012 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
12013 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
12014 established soon.</p>
12015
12016 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
12017 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
12018 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
12019 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
12020 for their packages.</p>
12021
12022       </div>
12023       <div class="tags">
12024
12025
12026         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>.
12027
12028
12029       </div>
12030     </div>
12031     <div class="padding"></div>
12032
12033     <div class="entry">
12034       <div class="title">
12035         <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>
12036       </div>
12037       <div class="date">
12038         23rd January 2011
12039       </div>
12040       <div class="body">
12041         <p>In the
12042 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
12043 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
12044 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
12045 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
12046 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
12047 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
12048 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
12049 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
12050 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
12051 one of my machines like this:</p>
12052
12053 <pre>
12054 loaded modules:
12055 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
12056 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
12057 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
12058 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
12059 10de:03ec pata_amd
12060 10de:03f6 sata_nv
12061 1022:1103 k8temp
12062 109e:036e bttv
12063 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
12064 11ab:4364 sky2
12065 </pre>
12066
12067 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
12068 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
12069
12070 <pre>
12071 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
12072     echo loaded pci modules:
12073     (
12074         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
12075         for address in * ; do
12076             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
12077                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
12078                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
12079                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
12080                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
12081                     echo "$id $module"
12082                 fi
12083             fi
12084         done
12085     )
12086     echo
12087 fi
12088 </pre>
12089
12090 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
12091 mappings:</p>
12092
12093 <pre>
12094 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
12095     echo loaded usb modules:
12096     (
12097         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
12098         for address in * ; do
12099             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
12100                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
12101                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
12102                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
12103                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
12104                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
12105                         echo "$id $module"
12106                     fi
12107                 fi
12108             fi
12109         done
12110     )
12111     echo
12112 fi
12113 </pre>
12114
12115 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
12116 well.</p>
12117
12118       </div>
12119       <div class="tags">
12120
12121
12122         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12123
12124
12125       </div>
12126     </div>
12127     <div class="padding"></div>
12128
12129     <div class="entry">
12130       <div class="title">
12131         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_video_format_most_supported_in_web_browsers_.html">The video format most supported in web browsers?</a>
12132       </div>
12133       <div class="date">
12134         16th January 2011
12135       </div>
12136       <div class="body">
12137         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
12138 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
12139 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
12140 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
12141 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
12142 the Wikipedia article on
12143 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
12144 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
12145 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
12146 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
12147 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
12148 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
12149 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
12150 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
12151 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
12152 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
12153 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
12154 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
12155
12156 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
12157 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
12158 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
12159 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
12160 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
12161 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
12162 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
12163 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
12164 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
12165 from last week</a>.</p>
12166
12167 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
12168 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
12169 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
12170 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
12171 was without royalties and license terms, check out
12172 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
12173 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
12174
12175 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
12176 available from
12177 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
12178 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
12179 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
12180
12181 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
12182 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
12183 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
12184 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
12185
12186       </div>
12187       <div class="tags">
12188
12189
12190         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>.
12191
12192
12193       </div>
12194     </div>
12195     <div class="padding"></div>
12196
12197     <div class="entry">
12198       <div class="title">
12199         <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>
12200       </div>
12201       <div class="date">
12202         12th January 2011
12203       </div>
12204       <div class="body">
12205         <p>Today I discovered
12206 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
12207 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
12208 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
12209 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
12210 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
12211 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
12212 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
12213 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
12214 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
12215 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
12216 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
12217 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
12218 on the Google announcement is available from
12219 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
12220 A good read. :)</p>
12221
12222 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
12223 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
12224 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
12225 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
12226 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
12227 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
12228 browsers support H.264, and others support
12229 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
12230 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
12231 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
12232 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
12233 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
12234 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
12235 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
12236 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
12237
12238 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
12239 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
12240 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
12241 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
12242 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
12243 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
12244 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
12245
12246 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
12247 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
12248 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
12249 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
12250 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
12251 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
12252 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
12253
12254 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
12255 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
12256 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
12257 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
12258 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
12259 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
12260 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
12261
12262 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
12263 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
12264 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
12265 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
12266 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
12267 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
12268 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
12269 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
12270 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
12271 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
12272 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
12273 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
12274 I guess time will tell.</p>
12275
12276 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
12277 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
12278 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
12279
12280       </div>
12281       <div class="tags">
12282
12283
12284         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>.
12285
12286
12287       </div>
12288     </div>
12289     <div class="padding"></div>
12290
12291     <div class="entry">
12292       <div class="title">
12293         <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>
12294       </div>
12295       <div class="date">
12296         30th December 2010
12297       </div>
12298       <div class="body">
12299         <p>After trying to
12300 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
12301 Ogg Theora</a> to
12302 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
12303 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
12304 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
12305 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
12306 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
12307 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
12308 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
12309
12310 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
12311 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
12312 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
12313 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
12314 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
12315 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
12316 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
12317
12318 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
12319 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
12320
12321       </div>
12322       <div class="tags">
12323
12324
12325         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>.
12326
12327
12328       </div>
12329     </div>
12330     <div class="padding"></div>
12331
12332     <div class="entry">
12333       <div class="title">
12334         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
12335       </div>
12336       <div class="date">
12337         27th December 2010
12338       </div>
12339       <div class="body">
12340         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
12341 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
12342 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
12343 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
12344 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
12345 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
12346 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
12347 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
12348
12349 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
12350 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
12351 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
12352 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
12353 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
12354 page</a>.</p>
12355
12356 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
12357 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
12358 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
12359 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
12360 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
12361 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
12362 specification on equal terms.</p>
12363
12364 <blockquote>
12365
12366 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
12367 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
12368 open standard:</p>
12369
12370 <ul>
12371
12372 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
12373 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
12374 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
12375 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
12376
12377 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
12378 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
12379 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
12380 nominal fee.</li>
12381
12382 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
12383 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
12384 free basis.</li>
12385
12386 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
12387
12388 </ul>
12389 </blockquote>
12390
12391 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
12392 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
12393 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
12394 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
12395 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
12396 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
12397 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
12398
12399 <blockquote>
12400
12401 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
12402
12403 <ol>
12404
12405 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
12406 tilgængelig.</li>
12407
12408 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
12409 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
12410
12411 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
12412 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
12413
12414 </ol>
12415
12416 </blockquote>
12417
12418 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
12419 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
12420
12421 <blockquote>
12422
12423 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
12424
12425 <ol>
12426
12427 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
12428 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
12429
12430 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
12431 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
12432 Standard themselves;</li>
12433
12434 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
12435 any party or in any business model;</li>
12436
12437 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
12438 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
12439 parties;</li>
12440
12441 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
12442 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
12443 parties.</li>
12444
12445 </ol>
12446
12447 </blockquote>
12448
12449 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
12450 its
12451 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
12452 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
12453
12454 <blockquote>
12455 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
12456
12457 <ul>
12458
12459 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
12460   democratic:
12461
12462          <ul>
12463
12464          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
12465             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
12466             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
12467             and managed.</li>
12468
12469          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
12470             method, can be changed through input from all
12471             participants.</li>
12472
12473          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
12474             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
12475
12476          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
12477             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
12478
12479          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
12480             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
12481             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
12482
12483          </ul>
12484
12485 </li>
12486
12487 </ul>
12488
12489 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
12490 <ul>
12491
12492 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
12493   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
12494   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
12495   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
12496   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
12497
12498 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
12499   a technical or economic barriers</li>
12500
12501 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
12502   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
12503   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
12504   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
12505   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
12506   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
12507   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
12508   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
12509   intended to function.</li>
12510
12511 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
12512   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
12513   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
12514
12515 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
12516   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
12517   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
12518   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
12519   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
12520   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
12521   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
12522   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
12523
12524       <ul>
12525
12526       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
12527         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
12528         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
12529
12530       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
12531         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
12532         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
12533         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
12534
12535       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
12536         licensor</li>
12537
12538       </ul>
12539 </li>
12540
12541 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
12542   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
12543   or restricted licensing terms</li>
12544
12545 </ul>
12546
12547 </blockquote>
12548
12549 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
12550 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
12551 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
12552 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
12553 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
12554 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
12555 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
12556 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
12557 Standards.</p>
12558
12559       </div>
12560       <div class="tags">
12561
12562
12563         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>.
12564
12565
12566       </div>
12567     </div>
12568     <div class="padding"></div>
12569
12570     <div class="entry">
12571       <div class="title">
12572         <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>
12573       </div>
12574       <div class="date">
12575         25th December 2010
12576       </div>
12577       <div class="body">
12578         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
12579 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
12580
12581 <blockquote>
12582
12583 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
12584 as follows:</p>
12585
12586 <ol>
12587
12588 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
12589 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
12590 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
12591
12592 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
12593 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
12594 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
12595 parties.</li>
12596
12597 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
12598 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
12599 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
12600
12601 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
12602 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
12603
12604 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
12605
12606 </ol>
12607
12608 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
12609 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
12610 products based on the standard.</p>
12611 </blockquote>
12612
12613 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
12614 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
12615 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
12616 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
12617 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
12618 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
12619 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
12620 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
12621
12622 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
12623
12624 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
12625 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
12626 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
12627 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
12628 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
12629 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
12630 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
12631 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
12632 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
12633 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
12634 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
12635 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
12636 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
12637 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
12638
12639 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
12640
12641 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
12642 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
12643 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
12644 documentation indicating this.</p>
12645
12646 <p>According to
12647 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
12648 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
12649 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
12650 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
12651 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
12652 report is correct.</p>
12653
12654 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
12655
12656 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
12657 container format</a> and both the
12658 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
12659 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
12660 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
12661
12662 <blockquote>
12663
12664 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
12665 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
12666 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
12667 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
12668 specification compliance.
12669
12670 </blockquote>
12671
12672 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
12673 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
12674 this is the term:<p>
12675
12676 <blockquote>
12677
12678 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
12679 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
12680 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
12681 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
12682 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
12683 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
12684 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
12685 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
12686 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
12687 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
12688 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
12689 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
12690
12691 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
12692 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
12693 </blockquote>
12694
12695 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
12696 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
12697 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
12698 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
12699 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
12700
12701 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
12702
12703 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
12704 Theora format.
12705 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
12706 and
12707 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
12708 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
12709 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
12710 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
12711 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
12712 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
12713 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
12714 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
12715
12716 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
12717
12718 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
12719
12720 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
12721
12722 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
12723 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
12724 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
12725 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
12726 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
12727 this.</p>
12728
12729 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
12730 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
12731
12732       </div>
12733       <div class="tags">
12734
12735
12736         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>.
12737
12738
12739       </div>
12740     </div>
12741     <div class="padding"></div>
12742
12743     <div class="entry">
12744       <div class="title">
12745         <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>
12746       </div>
12747       <div class="date">
12748         25th December 2010
12749       </div>
12750       <div class="body">
12751         <p>A few days ago
12752 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
12753 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
12754 2.0 of
12755 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
12756 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
12757 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
12758 Nothing very surprising there, given
12759 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
12760 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
12761 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
12762 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
12763 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
12764 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
12765 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
12766 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
12767 standard definition from its content.</p>
12768
12769 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
12770 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
12771 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
12772 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
12773 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
12774 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
12775 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
12776 background information about that story is available in
12777 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
12778 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
12779
12780 <blockquote>
12781 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
12782 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
12783 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
12784
12785 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
12786
12787 <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>
12788
12789 <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>
12790
12791 <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>
12792
12793 <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>
12794
12795 <p>
12796 <ul>
12797 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
12798 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
12799 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
12800 </ul>
12801 </p>
12802
12803 <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>
12804
12805 <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>
12806
12807 <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>
12808
12809 <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>
12810
12811 <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>
12812
12813
12814 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
12815 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
12816 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
12817 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
12818 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
12819 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
12820
12821 </p>
12822
12823 <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>
12824
12825 <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>
12826
12827 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
12828
12829 <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>
12830
12831 <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>
12832
12833 <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>
12834
12835 <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>
12836
12837 <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>
12838
12839 <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>
12840
12841 <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>
12842
12843 <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>
12844
12845 <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>
12846
12847 <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>
12848
12849 <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>
12850
12851 <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>
12852
12853 <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>
12854
12855 <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>
12856
12857 <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>
12858
12859 <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>
12860
12861 <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>
12862
12863 <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>
12864
12865 <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>
12866
12867 <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>
12868
12869 <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>
12870
12871 <p>On security:</p>
12872
12873 <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>
12874
12875 <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>
12876
12877 <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>
12878
12879 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
12880
12881 <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>
12882
12883 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
12884
12885 <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>
12886
12887 <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>
12888
12889 <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>
12890
12891 <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>
12892
12893 <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>
12894
12895 <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>
12896
12897 <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>
12898
12899 <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>
12900
12901 <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>
12902
12903 <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>
12904
12905 <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>
12906
12907 <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>
12908
12909 <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>
12910
12911 <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>
12912
12913 <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>
12914
12915 <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>
12916
12917 <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>
12918
12919 <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>
12920
12921 <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>
12922
12923 <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>
12924
12925 <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>
12926
12927 <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>
12928
12929 <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>
12930
12931 <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>
12932
12933 <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>
12934
12935 <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>
12936
12937 <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>
12938
12939 <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>
12940
12941 <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>
12942
12943 <p>Cordially,<br>
12944 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
12945 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
12946 </blockquote>
12947
12948       </div>
12949       <div class="tags">
12950
12951
12952         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>.
12953
12954
12955       </div>
12956     </div>
12957     <div class="padding"></div>
12958
12959     <div class="entry">
12960       <div class="title">
12961         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
12962       </div>
12963       <div class="date">
12964         25th December 2010
12965       </div>
12966       <div class="body">
12967         <p>Half a year ago I
12968 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
12969 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
12970 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
12971 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
12972
12973 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
12974 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
12975 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
12976 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
12977 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
12978 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
12979 got such a great test tool available.</p>
12980
12981       </div>
12982       <div class="tags">
12983
12984
12985         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>.
12986
12987
12988       </div>
12989     </div>
12990     <div class="padding"></div>
12991
12992     <div class="entry">
12993       <div class="title">
12994         <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>
12995       </div>
12996       <div class="date">
12997         22nd December 2010
12998       </div>
12999       <div class="body">
13000         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
13001 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
13002 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
13003 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
13004 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
13005 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
13006 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
13007 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
13008 university.</p>
13009
13010 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
13011 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
13012 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
13013 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
13014 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
13015 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
13016 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
13017 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
13018
13019 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
13020 I perform on a new model.</p>
13021
13022 <ul>
13023
13024 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
13025 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
13026 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
13027
13028 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
13029 installation, X.org is working.</li>
13030
13031 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
13032 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
13033 reported by the program.</li>
13034
13035 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
13036 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
13037 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
13038 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
13039 normally test this by playing
13040 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
13041 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
13042
13043 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
13044 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
13045
13046 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
13047 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
13048
13049 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
13050 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
13051
13052 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
13053 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
13054 few.</li>
13055
13056 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
13057 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
13058 notice this.</li>
13059
13060 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
13061 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
13062 resume.</li>
13063
13064 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
13065 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
13066 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
13067 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
13068 not.</li>
13069
13070 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
13071 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
13072 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
13073 existence.</li>
13074
13075 </ul>
13076
13077 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
13078 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
13079 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
13080 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
13081 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
13082 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
13083 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
13084 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
13085
13086       </div>
13087       <div class="tags">
13088
13089
13090         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>.
13091
13092
13093       </div>
13094     </div>
13095     <div class="padding"></div>
13096
13097     <div class="entry">
13098       <div class="title">
13099         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
13100       </div>
13101       <div class="date">
13102         11th December 2010
13103       </div>
13104       <div class="body">
13105         <p>As I continue to explore
13106 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
13107 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
13108 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
13109
13110 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
13111 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
13112 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
13113 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
13114 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
13115 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
13116 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
13117 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
13118 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
13119 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
13120 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
13121 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
13122 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
13123 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
13124 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
13125 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
13126 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
13127 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
13128 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
13129 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
13130
13131 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
13132 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
13133 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
13134 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
13135 If the Skolelinux foundation
13136 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
13137 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
13138 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
13139 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
13140 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
13141 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
13142 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
13143 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
13144
13145 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
13146 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
13147 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
13148 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
13149 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
13150 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
13151 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
13152 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
13153 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
13154 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
13155 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
13156 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
13157 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
13158 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
13159 currencies.</p>
13160
13161 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
13162 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
13163 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
13164 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
13165 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
13166 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
13167 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
13168 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
13169 BitCoins.  Check out
13170 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
13171 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
13172 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
13173 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
13174 yet.</p>
13175
13176 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
13177 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
13178 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
13179 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
13180 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
13181
13182       </div>
13183       <div class="tags">
13184
13185
13186         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>.
13187
13188
13189       </div>
13190     </div>
13191     <div class="padding"></div>
13192
13193     <div class="entry">
13194       <div class="title">
13195         <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>
13196       </div>
13197       <div class="date">
13198         10th December 2010
13199       </div>
13200       <div class="body">
13201         <p>With this weeks lawless
13202 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
13203 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
13204 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
13205 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
13206 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
13207 A blog post from
13208 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
13209 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
13210 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
13211 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
13212 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
13213 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
13214 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
13215
13216 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
13217 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
13218 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
13219 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
13220 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
13221 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
13222 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
13223 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
13224 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
13225 Debian</a> soon.</p>
13226
13227 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
13228 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
13229 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
13230 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
13231 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
13232 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
13233 you can even get
13234 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
13235 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
13236 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
13237 on the current exchange rates.</p>
13238
13239 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
13240 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
13241 donations to the address
13242 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
13243
13244       </div>
13245       <div class="tags">
13246
13247
13248         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>.
13249
13250
13251       </div>
13252     </div>
13253     <div class="padding"></div>
13254
13255     <div class="entry">
13256       <div class="title">
13257         <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>
13258       </div>
13259       <div class="date">
13260          9th December 2010
13261       </div>
13262       <div class="body">
13263         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
13264 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
13265 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
13266 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
13267 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
13268 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
13269 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
13270 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
13271 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
13272 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
13273 operational.</p>
13274
13275 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
13276 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
13277 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
13278 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
13279 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
13280 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
13281 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
13282
13283       </div>
13284       <div class="tags">
13285
13286
13287         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>.
13288
13289
13290       </div>
13291     </div>
13292     <div class="padding"></div>
13293
13294     <div class="entry">
13295       <div class="title">
13296         <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>
13297       </div>
13298       <div class="date">
13299         29th November 2010
13300       </div>
13301       <div class="body">
13302         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
13303 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
13304 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
13305 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
13306 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
13307 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
13308
13309 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
13310 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
13311 will hold its
13312 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
13313 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
13314 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
13315 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
13316 vote this year.</p>
13317
13318       </div>
13319       <div class="tags">
13320
13321
13322         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>.
13323
13324
13325       </div>
13326     </div>
13327     <div class="padding"></div>
13328
13329     <div class="entry">
13330       <div class="title">
13331         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
13332       </div>
13333       <div class="date">
13334         27th November 2010
13335       </div>
13336       <div class="body">
13337         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
13338 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
13339 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
13340 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
13341 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
13342 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
13343 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
13344 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
13345
13346 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
13347 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
13348 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
13349 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
13350 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
13351 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
13352 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
13353 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
13354 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
13355 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
13356 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
13357
13358 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
13359 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
13360 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
13361 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
13362 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
13363 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
13364 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
13365 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
13366 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
13367 what is going on.</p>
13368
13369       </div>
13370       <div class="tags">
13371
13372
13373         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>.
13374
13375
13376       </div>
13377     </div>
13378     <div class="padding"></div>
13379
13380     <div class="entry">
13381       <div class="title">
13382         <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>
13383       </div>
13384       <div class="date">
13385         22nd November 2010
13386       </div>
13387       <div class="body">
13388         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
13389 upgrade testing of the
13390 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
13391 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
13392 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
13393 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
13394
13395 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
13396
13397 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13398
13399 <blockquote><p>
13400   apache2.2-bin
13401   aptdaemon
13402   baobab
13403   binfmt-support
13404   browser-plugin-gnash
13405   cheese-common
13406   cli-common
13407   cups-pk-helper
13408   dmz-cursor-theme
13409   empathy
13410   empathy-common
13411   freedesktop-sound-theme
13412   freeglut3
13413   gconf-defaults-service
13414   gdm-themes
13415   gedit-plugins
13416   geoclue
13417   geoclue-hostip
13418   geoclue-localnet
13419   geoclue-manual
13420   geoclue-yahoo
13421   gnash
13422   gnash-common
13423   gnome
13424   gnome-backgrounds
13425   gnome-cards-data
13426   gnome-codec-install
13427   gnome-core
13428   gnome-desktop-environment
13429   gnome-disk-utility
13430   gnome-screenshot
13431   gnome-search-tool
13432   gnome-session-canberra
13433   gnome-system-log
13434   gnome-themes-extras
13435   gnome-themes-more
13436   gnome-user-share
13437   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
13438   gstreamer0.10-tools
13439   gtk2-engines
13440   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
13441   gtk2-engines-smooth
13442   hamster-applet
13443   libapache2-mod-dnssd
13444   libapr1
13445   libaprutil1
13446   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
13447   libaprutil1-ldap
13448   libart2.0-cil
13449   libboost-date-time1.42.0
13450   libboost-python1.42.0
13451   libboost-thread1.42.0
13452   libchamplain-0.4-0
13453   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
13454   libcheese-gtk18
13455   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
13456   libcryptui0
13457   libdiscid0
13458   libelf1
13459   libepc-1.0-2
13460   libepc-common
13461   libepc-ui-1.0-2
13462   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
13463   libfreerdp0
13464   libgconf2.0-cil
13465   libgdata-common
13466   libgdata7
13467   libgdu-gtk0
13468   libgee2
13469   libgeoclue0
13470   libgexiv2-0
13471   libgif4
13472   libglade2.0-cil
13473   libglib2.0-cil
13474   libgmime2.4-cil
13475   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
13476   libgnome2.24-cil
13477   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
13478   libgpod-common
13479   libgpod4
13480   libgtk2.0-cil
13481   libgtkglext1
13482   libgtksourceview2.0-common
13483   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
13484   libmono-addins0.2-cil
13485   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
13486   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
13487   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
13488   libmono-posix2.0-cil
13489   libmono-security2.0-cil
13490   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
13491   libmono-system2.0-cil
13492   libmtp8
13493   libmusicbrainz3-6
13494   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
13495   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
13496   libopal3.6.8
13497   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
13498   libpt2.6.7
13499   libpython2.6
13500   librpm1
13501   librpmio1
13502   libsdl1.2debian
13503   libsrtp0
13504   libssh-4
13505   libtelepathy-farsight0
13506   libtelepathy-glib0
13507   libtidy-0.99-0
13508   media-player-info
13509   mesa-utils
13510   mono-2.0-gac
13511   mono-gac
13512   mono-runtime
13513   nautilus-sendto
13514   nautilus-sendto-empathy
13515   p7zip-full
13516   pkg-config
13517   python-aptdaemon
13518   python-aptdaemon-gtk
13519   python-axiom
13520   python-beautifulsoup
13521   python-bugbuddy
13522   python-clientform
13523   python-coherence
13524   python-configobj
13525   python-crypto
13526   python-cupshelpers
13527   python-elementtree
13528   python-epsilon
13529   python-evolution
13530   python-feedparser
13531   python-gdata
13532   python-gdbm
13533   python-gst0.10
13534   python-gtkglext1
13535   python-gtksourceview2
13536   python-httplib2
13537   python-louie
13538   python-mako
13539   python-markupsafe
13540   python-mechanize
13541   python-nevow
13542   python-notify
13543   python-opengl
13544   python-openssl
13545   python-pam
13546   python-pkg-resources
13547   python-pyasn1
13548   python-pysqlite2
13549   python-rdflib
13550   python-serial
13551   python-tagpy
13552   python-twisted-bin
13553   python-twisted-conch
13554   python-twisted-core
13555   python-twisted-web
13556   python-utidylib
13557   python-webkit
13558   python-xdg
13559   python-zope.interface
13560   remmina
13561   remmina-plugin-data
13562   remmina-plugin-rdp
13563   remmina-plugin-vnc
13564   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
13565   rhythmbox-plugins
13566   rpm-common
13567   rpm2cpio
13568   seahorse-plugins
13569   shotwell
13570   software-center
13571   system-config-printer-udev
13572   telepathy-gabble
13573   telepathy-mission-control-5
13574   telepathy-salut
13575   tomboy
13576   totem
13577   totem-coherence
13578   totem-mozilla
13579   totem-plugins
13580   transmission-common
13581   xdg-user-dirs
13582   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
13583   xserver-xephyr
13584 </p></blockquote>
13585
13586 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
13587
13588 <blockquote><p>
13589   cheese
13590   ekiga
13591   eog
13592   epiphany-extensions
13593   evolution-exchange
13594   fast-user-switch-applet
13595   file-roller
13596   gcalctool
13597   gconf-editor
13598   gdm
13599   gedit
13600   gedit-common
13601   gnome-games
13602   gnome-games-data
13603   gnome-nettool
13604   gnome-system-tools
13605   gnome-themes
13606   gnuchess
13607   gucharmap
13608   guile-1.8-libs
13609   libavahi-ui0
13610   libdmx1
13611   libgalago3
13612   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
13613   libgtksourceview2.0-0
13614   liblircclient0
13615   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
13616   libspeexdsp1
13617   libsvga1
13618   rhythmbox
13619   seahorse
13620   sound-juicer
13621   system-config-printer
13622   totem-common
13623   transmission-gtk
13624   vinagre
13625   vino
13626 </p></blockquote>
13627
13628 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13629
13630 <blockquote><p>
13631   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
13632 </p></blockquote>
13633
13634 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13635
13636 <blockquote><p>
13637 [nothing]
13638 </p></blockquote>
13639
13640 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
13641
13642 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13643
13644 <blockquote><p>
13645   ksmserver
13646 </p></blockquote>
13647
13648 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
13649
13650 <blockquote><p>
13651   kwin
13652   network-manager-kde
13653 </p></blockquote>
13654
13655 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13656
13657 <blockquote><p>
13658   arts
13659   dolphin
13660   freespacenotifier
13661   google-gadgets-gst
13662   google-gadgets-xul
13663   kappfinder
13664   kcalc
13665   kcharselect
13666   kde-core
13667   kde-plasma-desktop
13668   kde-standard
13669   kde-window-manager
13670   kdeartwork
13671   kdeartwork-emoticons
13672   kdeartwork-style
13673   kdeartwork-theme-icon
13674   kdebase
13675   kdebase-apps
13676   kdebase-workspace
13677   kdebase-workspace-bin
13678   kdebase-workspace-data
13679   kdeeject
13680   kdelibs
13681   kdeplasma-addons
13682   kdeutils
13683   kdewallpapers
13684   kdf
13685   kfloppy
13686   kgpg
13687   khelpcenter4
13688   kinfocenter
13689   konq-plugins-l10n
13690   konqueror-nsplugins
13691   kscreensaver
13692   kscreensaver-xsavers
13693   ktimer
13694   kwrite
13695   libgle3
13696   libkde4-ruby1.8
13697   libkonq5
13698   libkonq5-templates
13699   libnetpbm10
13700   libplasma-ruby
13701   libplasma-ruby1.8
13702   libqt4-ruby1.8
13703   marble-data
13704   marble-plugins
13705   netpbm
13706   nuvola-icon-theme
13707   plasma-dataengines-workspace
13708   plasma-desktop
13709   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
13710   plasma-runners-addons
13711   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
13712   plasma-scriptengine-python
13713   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
13714   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
13715   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
13716   plasma-scriptengines
13717   plasma-wallpapers-addons
13718   plasma-widget-folderview
13719   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
13720   ruby
13721   sweeper
13722   update-notifier-kde
13723   xscreensaver-data-extra
13724   xscreensaver-gl
13725   xscreensaver-gl-extra
13726   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
13727 </p></blockquote>
13728
13729 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13730
13731 <blockquote><p>
13732   ark
13733   google-gadgets-common
13734   google-gadgets-qt
13735   htdig
13736   kate
13737   kdebase-bin
13738   kdebase-data
13739   kdepasswd
13740   kfind
13741   klipper
13742   konq-plugins
13743   konqueror
13744   ksysguard
13745   ksysguardd
13746   libarchive1
13747   libcln6
13748   libeet1
13749   libeina-svn-06
13750   libggadget-1.0-0b
13751   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
13752   libgps19
13753   libkdecorations4
13754   libkephal4
13755   libkonq4
13756   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
13757   libkscreensaver5
13758   libksgrd4
13759   libksignalplotter4
13760   libkunitconversion4
13761   libkwineffects1a
13762   libmarblewidget4
13763   libntrack-qt4-1
13764   libntrack0
13765   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
13766   libplasmaclock4a
13767   libplasmagenericshell4
13768   libprocesscore4a
13769   libprocessui4a
13770   libqalculate5
13771   libqedje0a
13772   libqtruby4shared2
13773   libqzion0a
13774   libruby1.8
13775   libscim8c2a
13776   libsmokekdecore4-3
13777   libsmokekdeui4-3
13778   libsmokekfile3
13779   libsmokekhtml3
13780   libsmokekio3
13781   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
13782   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
13783   libsmokekparts3
13784   libsmokektexteditor3
13785   libsmokekutils3
13786   libsmokenepomuk3
13787   libsmokephonon3
13788   libsmokeplasma3
13789   libsmokeqtcore4-3
13790   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
13791   libsmokeqtgui4-3
13792   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
13793   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
13794   libsmokeqtscript4-3
13795   libsmokeqtsql4-3
13796   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
13797   libsmokeqttest4-3
13798   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
13799   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
13800   libsmokeqtxml4-3
13801   libsmokesolid3
13802   libsmokesoprano3
13803   libtaskmanager4a
13804   libtidy-0.99-0
13805   libweather-ion4a
13806   libxklavier16
13807   libxxf86misc1
13808   okteta
13809   oxygencursors
13810   plasma-dataengines-addons
13811   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
13812   plasma-widget-lancelot
13813   plasma-widgets-addons
13814   plasma-widgets-workspace
13815   polkit-kde-1
13816   ruby1.8
13817   systemsettings
13818   update-notifier-common
13819 </p></blockquote>
13820
13821 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
13822 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
13823 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
13824 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
13825
13826       </div>
13827       <div class="tags">
13828
13829
13830         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>.
13831
13832
13833       </div>
13834     </div>
13835     <div class="padding"></div>
13836
13837     <div class="entry">
13838       <div class="title">
13839         <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>
13840       </div>
13841       <div class="date">
13842         22nd November 2010
13843       </div>
13844       <div class="body">
13845         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
13846 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
13847 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
13848 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
13849 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
13850 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
13851 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
13852 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
13853 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
13854
13855 <p>I found
13856 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
13857 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
13858 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
13859 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
13860 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
13861 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
13862
13863 <pre>
13864 #!/bin/sh
13865
13866 # Based on
13867 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
13868
13869 set -e
13870 set -x
13871
13872 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
13873     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
13874     exit 1
13875 else
13876     host="$1"
13877 fi
13878
13879 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
13880     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
13881     exit 1
13882 fi
13883
13884 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
13885 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
13886 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
13887 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
13888
13889 img=$host.img
13890 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
13891 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
13892
13893 parted $img mklabel msdos
13894 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
13895 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
13896 parted $img set 1 boot on
13897
13898 modprobe dm-mod
13899 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
13900 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
13901
13902 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
13903 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
13904 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
13905
13906 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
13907 losetup -d /dev/loop0
13908 </pre>
13909
13910 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
13911 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
13912
13913 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
13914 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
13915 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
13916 seem to work just fine.</p>
13917
13918       </div>
13919       <div class="tags">
13920
13921
13922         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>.
13923
13924
13925       </div>
13926     </div>
13927     <div class="padding"></div>
13928
13929     <div class="entry">
13930       <div class="title">
13931         <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>
13932       </div>
13933       <div class="date">
13934         20th November 2010
13935       </div>
13936       <div class="body">
13937         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
13938 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
13939 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
13940 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
13941
13942 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
13943 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
13944 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
13945
13946 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
13947
13948 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13949
13950 <blockquote><p>
13951   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
13952   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
13953   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
13954   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
13955   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
13956   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
13957   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
13958   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
13959   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
13960   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
13961   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
13962   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
13963   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
13964   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
13965   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
13966   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
13967   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
13968   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
13969   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
13970   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
13971   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
13972   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
13973   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
13974   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
13975   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
13976   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
13977   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
13978   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
13979   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
13980   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
13981   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
13982   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
13983   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
13984   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
13985   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
13986   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
13987   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
13988   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
13989   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
13990   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
13991   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
13992   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
13993   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
13994   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
13995   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
13996   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
13997   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
13998   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
13999   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
14000   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
14001   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
14002   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
14003   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
14004   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
14005   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
14006   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
14007   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
14008   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
14009   zip
14010 </p></blockquote>
14011
14012 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
14013
14014 <blockquote><p>
14015   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
14016   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
14017   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
14018   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
14019   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
14020   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
14021   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
14022   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
14023   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
14024   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
14025   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
14026   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
14027   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
14028   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
14029   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
14030   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
14031   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
14032   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
14033   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
14034   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
14035   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
14036   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
14037   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
14038   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
14039   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
14040   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
14041   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
14042   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
14043   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
14044 </p></blockquote>
14045
14046 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
14047
14048 <blockquote><p>
14049   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
14050 </p></blockquote>
14051
14052 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
14053
14054 <blockquote><p>
14055 [nothing]
14056 </p></blockquote>
14057
14058 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
14059
14060 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
14061
14062 <blockquote><p>
14063   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
14064   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
14065   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
14066   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
14067   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
14068   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
14069   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
14070   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
14071   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
14072   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
14073   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
14074   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
14075   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
14076   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
14077   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
14078   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
14079   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
14080   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
14081   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
14082   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
14083   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
14084   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
14085   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
14086   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
14087   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
14088   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
14089   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
14090   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
14091   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
14092   ttf-sazanami-gothic
14093 </p></blockquote>
14094
14095 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
14096
14097 <blockquote><p>
14098   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
14099   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
14100   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
14101   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
14102   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
14103   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
14104   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
14105   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
14106   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
14107   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
14108   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
14109   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
14110   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
14111   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
14112   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
14113   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
14114   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
14115   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
14116   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
14117   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
14118   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
14119   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
14120   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
14121   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
14122   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
14123   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
14124   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
14125   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
14126   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
14127   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
14128   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
14129   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
14130   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
14131 </p></blockquote>
14132
14133 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
14134
14135 <blockquote><p>
14136   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
14137   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
14138   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
14139   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
14140   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
14141   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
14142   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
14143 </p></blockquote>
14144
14145 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
14146
14147 <blockquote><p>
14148   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
14149 </p></blockquote>
14150
14151       </div>
14152       <div class="tags">
14153
14154
14155         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>.
14156
14157
14158       </div>
14159     </div>
14160     <div class="padding"></div>
14161
14162     <div class="entry">
14163       <div class="title">
14164         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
14165       </div>
14166       <div class="date">
14167         20th November 2010
14168       </div>
14169       <div class="body">
14170         <p>Answering
14171 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
14172 call from the Gnash project</a> for
14173 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
14174 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
14175 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
14176 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
14177 releases out more often.</p>
14178
14179 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
14180 I have considered setting up a <a
14181 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
14182 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
14183 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
14184 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
14185 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
14186 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
14187 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
14188 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
14189 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
14190 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
14191 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
14192 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
14193
14194       </div>
14195       <div class="tags">
14196
14197
14198         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>.
14199
14200
14201       </div>
14202     </div>
14203     <div class="padding"></div>
14204
14205     <div class="entry">
14206       <div class="title">
14207         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
14208       </div>
14209       <div class="date">
14210          9th November 2010
14211       </div>
14212       <div class="body">
14213         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
14214
14215 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
14216 3D linked in from
14217 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
14218 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
14219
14220       </div>
14221       <div class="tags">
14222
14223
14224         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>.
14225
14226
14227       </div>
14228     </div>
14229     <div class="padding"></div>
14230
14231     <div class="entry">
14232       <div class="title">
14233         <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>
14234       </div>
14235       <div class="date">
14236          7th November 2010
14237       </div>
14238       <div class="body">
14239         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
14240 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
14241 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
14242 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
14243 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
14244 working using this DVD.</p>
14245
14246 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
14247 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
14248 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
14249 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
14250 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
14251 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
14252 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
14253
14254 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
14255 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
14256 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
14257 Debian archive.</p>
14258
14259 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
14260 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
14261 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
14262 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
14263 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
14264 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
14265 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
14266 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
14267 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
14268 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
14269 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
14270 free X driver should work.</p>
14271
14272 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
14273 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
14274 DVD more useful again.</p>
14275
14276       </div>
14277       <div class="tags">
14278
14279
14280         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>.
14281
14282
14283       </div>
14284     </div>
14285     <div class="padding"></div>
14286
14287     <div class="entry">
14288       <div class="title">
14289         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
14290       </div>
14291       <div class="date">
14292         24th October 2010
14293       </div>
14294       <div class="body">
14295         <p>Some updates.</p>
14296
14297 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
14298 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
14299 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
14300 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
14301 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
14302 :)</p>
14303
14304 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
14305 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
14306 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
14307 It is called
14308 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
14309 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
14310 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
14311 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
14312 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
14313 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
14314
14315 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
14316 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
14317 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
14318 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
14319 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
14320 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
14321 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
14322 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
14323 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
14324 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
14325
14326       </div>
14327       <div class="tags">
14328
14329
14330         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>.
14331
14332
14333       </div>
14334     </div>
14335     <div class="padding"></div>
14336
14337     <div class="entry">
14338       <div class="title">
14339         <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>
14340       </div>
14341       <div class="date">
14342         19th October 2010
14343       </div>
14344       <div class="body">
14345         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
14346 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
14347 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
14348 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
14349 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
14350 AVM2 flash files.</p>
14351
14352 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
14353 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
14354 following text:</P>
14355
14356 <p><blockquote>
14357
14358   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
14359   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
14360
14361   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
14362
14363   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
14364
14365   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
14366   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
14367   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
14368   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
14369   days. The project web page is available from
14370   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
14371   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
14372   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
14373
14374   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
14375   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
14376   to get this to happen.</p>
14377
14378   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
14379   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
14380
14381 </blockquote></p>
14382
14383 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
14384 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
14385 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
14386 :)</p>
14387
14388       </div>
14389       <div class="tags">
14390
14391
14392         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>.
14393
14394
14395       </div>
14396     </div>
14397     <div class="padding"></div>
14398
14399     <div class="entry">
14400       <div class="title">
14401         <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>
14402       </div>
14403       <div class="date">
14404          9th October 2010
14405       </div>
14406       <div class="body">
14407         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
14408 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
14409 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
14410 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
14411 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
14412 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
14413 robots.</p>
14414
14415 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
14416 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
14417 a few less important features too.</p>
14418
14419 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
14420 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
14421 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
14422 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
14423
14424 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
14425 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
14426 source or binary package:</p>
14427
14428 <p><ul>
14429 <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>
14430 <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>
14431 <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>
14432 </ul></p>
14433
14434 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
14435 please let me know.</p>
14436
14437       </div>
14438       <div class="tags">
14439
14440
14441         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>.
14442
14443
14444       </div>
14445     </div>
14446     <div class="padding"></div>
14447
14448     <div class="entry">
14449       <div class="title">
14450         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
14451       </div>
14452       <div class="date">
14453          3rd October 2010
14454       </div>
14455       <div class="body">
14456         <p><ul>
14457
14458 <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
14459 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
14460
14461 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
14462 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
14463 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
14464
14465 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
14466 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
14467 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
14468 simple setup.
14469
14470 </ul></p>
14471
14472       </div>
14473       <div class="tags">
14474
14475
14476         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>.
14477
14478
14479       </div>
14480     </div>
14481     <div class="padding"></div>
14482
14483     <div class="entry">
14484       <div class="title">
14485         <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>
14486       </div>
14487       <div class="date">
14488          9th September 2010
14489       </div>
14490       <div class="body">
14491         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
14492 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
14493 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
14494 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
14495 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
14496 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
14497 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
14498 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
14499 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
14500
14501 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
14502 written:</p>
14503
14504 <blockquote>
14505 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
14506 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
14507 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
14508 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
14509 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
14510
14511 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
14512 standard.</p>
14513 </blockquote>
14514
14515 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
14516 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
14517 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
14518 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
14519
14520 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
14521 read
14522 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
14523 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
14524 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
14525 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
14526 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
14527 the issue.  The solution is to support the
14528 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
14529 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
14530 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
14531
14532       </div>
14533       <div class="tags">
14534
14535
14536         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>.
14537
14538
14539       </div>
14540     </div>
14541     <div class="padding"></div>
14542
14543     <div class="entry">
14544       <div class="title">
14545         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
14546       </div>
14547       <div class="date">
14548          4th September 2010
14549       </div>
14550       <div class="body">
14551         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
14552 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
14553 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
14554 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
14555 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
14556 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
14557 installed.</p>
14558
14559 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
14560 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
14561 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
14562 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
14563 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
14564 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
14565 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
14566 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
14567 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
14568
14569 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
14570 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
14571 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
14572 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
14573 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
14574 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
14575 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
14576 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
14577 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
14578 pages they want to visit.</p>
14579
14580 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
14581 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
14582 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
14583 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
14584 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
14585 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
14586 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
14587 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
14588 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
14589 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
14590 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
14591
14592       </div>
14593       <div class="tags">
14594
14595
14596         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>.
14597
14598
14599       </div>
14600     </div>
14601     <div class="padding"></div>
14602
14603     <div class="entry">
14604       <div class="title">
14605         <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>
14606       </div>
14607       <div class="date">
14608          1st September 2010
14609       </div>
14610       <div class="body">
14611         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
14612 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
14613 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
14614 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
14615 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
14616 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
14617 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
14618 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
14619 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
14620 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
14621 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
14622 drive around.</p>
14623
14624 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
14625 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
14626
14627 <p><pre>
14628 use Spykee;
14629 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
14630 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
14631 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
14632 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
14633 $spykee->left();
14634 sleep 2;
14635 $spykee->right();
14636 sleep 2;
14637 $spykee->forward();
14638 sleep 2;
14639 $spykee->back();
14640 sleep 2;
14641 $spykee->stop();
14642 </pre></p>
14643
14644 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
14645 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
14646 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
14647 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
14648 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
14649 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
14650 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
14651 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
14652 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
14653 going. :).</p>
14654
14655 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
14656 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
14657 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
14658 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
14659
14660       </div>
14661       <div class="tags">
14662
14663
14664         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>.
14665
14666
14667       </div>
14668     </div>
14669     <div class="padding"></div>
14670
14671     <div class="entry">
14672       <div class="title">
14673         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
14674       </div>
14675       <div class="date">
14676         30th August 2010
14677       </div>
14678       <div class="body">
14679         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
14680 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
14681 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
14682 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
14683 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
14684 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
14685 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
14686
14687 <pre>
14688 % ln foo bar
14689 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
14690 %
14691 </pre>
14692
14693 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
14694 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
14695 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
14696 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
14697 nevertheless. :)</p>
14698
14699 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
14700 git from
14701 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
14702
14703       </div>
14704       <div class="tags">
14705
14706
14707         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>.
14708
14709
14710       </div>
14711     </div>
14712     <div class="padding"></div>
14713
14714     <div class="entry">
14715       <div class="title">
14716         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
14717       </div>
14718       <div class="date">
14719         26th August 2010
14720       </div>
14721       <div class="body">
14722         <p>My file system sematics program
14723 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
14724 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
14725 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
14726 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
14727 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
14728 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
14729 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
14730 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
14731 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
14732 script:</p>
14733
14734 <pre>
14735 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
14736   mode_t retval = 0;
14737   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
14738   if (-1 != fd) {
14739     unlink(name);
14740     struct stat statbuf;
14741     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
14742       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
14743     }
14744     close(fd);
14745   }
14746   return retval;
14747 }
14748
14749 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
14750 int test_umask(void) {
14751   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
14752
14753   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
14754   mode_t newmode;
14755   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
14756     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
14757            newmode);
14758   }
14759   umask(007);
14760   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
14761     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
14762            newmode);
14763   }
14764
14765   umask (orig_umask);
14766   return 0;
14767 }
14768
14769 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
14770   [...]
14771   test_umask();
14772   return 0;
14773 }
14774 </pre>
14775
14776 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
14777
14778 <pre>
14779 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
14780 info: testing symlink creation
14781 info: testing subdirectory creation
14782 info: testing fcntl locking
14783   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
14784   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
14785   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
14786   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
14787   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
14788   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
14789 info: testing umask effect on file creation
14790 </pre>
14791
14792 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
14793 result:</p>
14794
14795 <pre>
14796 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
14797 info: testing symlink creation
14798 info: testing subdirectory creation
14799 info: testing fcntl locking
14800   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
14801   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
14802   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
14803   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
14804   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
14805   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
14806 info: testing umask effect on file creation
14807   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
14808   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
14809 </pre>
14810
14811 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
14812 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
14813 directory.</p>
14814
14815 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
14816 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
14817
14818 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
14819 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
14820 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
14821
14822       </div>
14823       <div class="tags">
14824
14825
14826         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>.
14827
14828
14829       </div>
14830     </div>
14831     <div class="padding"></div>
14832
14833     <div class="entry">
14834       <div class="title">
14835         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
14836       </div>
14837       <div class="date">
14838         15th August 2010
14839       </div>
14840       <div class="body">
14841         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
14842 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
14843 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
14844 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
14845 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
14846 long time.</p>
14847
14848       </div>
14849       <div class="tags">
14850
14851
14852         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>.
14853
14854
14855       </div>
14856     </div>
14857     <div class="padding"></div>
14858
14859     <div class="entry">
14860       <div class="title">
14861         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
14862       </div>
14863       <div class="date">
14864          9th August 2010
14865       </div>
14866       <div class="body">
14867         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
14868 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
14869 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
14870 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
14871 generated configuration.</p>
14872
14873 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
14874 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
14875 without any manual configuration.</p>
14876
14877 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
14878 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
14879 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
14880 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
14881 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
14882 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
14883 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
14884 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
14885 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
14886 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
14887 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
14888 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
14889 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
14890 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
14891 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
14892 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
14893 use.</p>
14894
14895 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
14896 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
14897 working properly out of the box:</p>
14898
14899 <ul>
14900 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
14901 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
14902 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
14903 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
14904 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
14905 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
14906 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
14907 </ul>
14908
14909 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
14910
14911 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
14912 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
14913 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
14914 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
14915 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
14916
14917 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
14918 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
14919 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
14920 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
14921 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
14922 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
14923 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
14924 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
14925
14926 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
14927 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
14928 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
14929 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
14930 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
14931 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
14932 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
14933 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
14934 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
14935 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
14936 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
14937 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
14938 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
14939 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
14940 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
14941 current DNS domain is used.</p>
14942
14943 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
14944 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
14945 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
14946 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
14947 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
14948 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
14949 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
14950 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
14951 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
14952 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
14953 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
14954 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
14955 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
14956
14957 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
14958 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
14959 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
14960 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
14961 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
14962 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
14963 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
14964 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
14965 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
14966 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
14967 do for now. :)</p>
14968
14969 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
14970 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
14971 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
14972 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
14973 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
14974 yet.</p>
14975
14976 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
14977 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14978
14979 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
14980 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
14981 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
14982 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
14983
14984       </div>
14985       <div class="tags">
14986
14987
14988         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>.
14989
14990
14991       </div>
14992     </div>
14993     <div class="padding"></div>
14994
14995     <div class="entry">
14996       <div class="title">
14997         <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>
14998       </div>
14999       <div class="date">
15000          8th August 2010
15001       </div>
15002       <div class="body">
15003         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
15004 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
15005 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
15006 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
15007 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
15008 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
15009 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
15010
15011 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
15012 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
15013 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
15014 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
15015 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
15016 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
15017 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
15018
15019 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
15020 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
15021 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
15022 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
15023 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
15024
15025 <pre>
15026 /*
15027  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
15028  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
15029  * directory.
15030  * License: GPL v2 or later
15031  *
15032  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
15033  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
15034 */
15035
15036 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
15037 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
15038 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
15039
15040 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
15041
15042 #include &lt;errno.h>
15043 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
15044 #include &lt;stdio.h>
15045 #include &lt;string.h>
15046 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
15047 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
15048 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
15049 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
15050 #include &lt;unistd.h>
15051
15052 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
15053 /*
15054  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
15055  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
15056  * below.
15057  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
15058  */
15059 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
15060 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
15061   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
15062 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
15063   char *zErrMsg;
15064   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
15065   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
15066   unlink(name);
15067   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
15068   if( rc ){
15069     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
15070     sqlite3_close(db);
15071     return -1;
15072   }
15073
15074   /* create tables */
15075   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
15076   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
15077     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
15078     sqlite3_close(db);
15079     return -1;
15080   }
15081   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
15082   sqlite3_close(db);
15083   return 0;
15084 }
15085 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
15086
15087 /*
15088  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
15089  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
15090  * done in the sqlite3 library.
15091  * See also
15092  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
15093  * POSIX specification
15094  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
15095  */
15096 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
15097   struct flock fl;
15098   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
15099   unlink(name);
15100   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
15101   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
15102
15103   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
15104   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
15105   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
15106   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
15107   fl.l_len    = 1;
15108   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
15109   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
15110
15111   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
15112   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
15113   fl.l_len    = 510;
15114   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
15115   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
15116
15117   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
15118   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
15119   fl.l_len    = 1;
15120   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
15121   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
15122
15123   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
15124   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
15125   fl.l_len    = 1;
15126   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
15127   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
15128
15129   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
15130   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
15131   fl.l_len    = 510;
15132   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
15133
15134   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
15135   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
15136   fl.l_len    = 2;
15137   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
15138   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
15139
15140   close(fd);
15141   return 0;
15142 }
15143
15144 /*
15145  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
15146  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
15147  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
15148  * slowing down file operations.
15149  */
15150 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
15151 #define LEVELS 5
15152   char *path = strdup("test");
15153   char *dirs[LEVELS];
15154   int level;
15155   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
15156   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
15157     char *newpath = NULL;
15158     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
15159       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
15160              path, strerror(errno));
15161       break;
15162     }
15163     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
15164     free(path);
15165     path = newpath;
15166   }
15167   return 0;
15168 }
15169
15170 /*
15171  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
15172  * KDE.
15173  */
15174 int test_symlinks(void) {
15175   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
15176   unlink("symlink");
15177   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
15178     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
15179   return 0;
15180 }
15181
15182 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
15183   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
15184   test_symlinks();
15185   test_subdirectory_creation();
15186 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
15187   test_sqlite_open();
15188 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
15189   test_gcompris_locking();
15190   return 0;
15191 }
15192 </pre>
15193
15194 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
15195 this:</p>
15196
15197 <pre>
15198 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
15199 info: testing symlink creation
15200 info: testing subdirectory creation
15201 info: sqlite worked
15202 info: testing fcntl locking
15203   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15204   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15205   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
15206   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15207   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15208   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
15209 </pre>
15210
15211 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
15212 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
15213 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
15214 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
15215 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
15216 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
15217 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
15218 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
15219
15220 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
15221 it. :)</p>
15222
15223 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
15224 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
15225 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
15226
15227       </div>
15228       <div class="tags">
15229
15230
15231         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>.
15232
15233
15234       </div>
15235     </div>
15236     <div class="padding"></div>
15237
15238     <div class="entry">
15239       <div class="title">
15240         <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>
15241       </div>
15242       <div class="date">
15243          7th August 2010
15244       </div>
15245       <div class="body">
15246         <p>A few days ago, I
15247 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
15248 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
15249 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
15250 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
15251 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
15252 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
15253 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
15254 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
15255 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
15256
15257 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
15258 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
15259 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
15260 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
15261 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
15262 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
15263 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
15264 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
15265 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
15266 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
15267 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
15268 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
15269 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
15270 gave it a IP address.</p>
15271
15272 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
15273 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
15274 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
15275 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
15276 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
15277 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
15278 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
15279 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
15280
15281 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
15282 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
15283 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
15284 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
15285 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
15286 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
15287
15288 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
15289 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
15290 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
15291 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
15292 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
15293 with UID and GID values.</p>
15294
15295 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
15296 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15297
15298       </div>
15299       <div class="tags">
15300
15301
15302         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>.
15303
15304
15305       </div>
15306     </div>
15307     <div class="padding"></div>
15308
15309     <div class="entry">
15310       <div class="title">
15311         <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>
15312       </div>
15313       <div class="date">
15314          3rd August 2010
15315       </div>
15316       <div class="body">
15317         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
15318 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
15319 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
15320 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
15321 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
15322 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
15323 servers.</p>
15324
15325 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
15326 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
15327 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
15328 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
15329 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
15330 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
15331 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
15332 .uio.no.</p>
15333
15334 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
15335 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
15336 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
15337 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
15338 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
15339 university servers.</p>
15340
15341 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
15342 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
15343 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
15344 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
15345 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
15346 uses.</p>
15347
15348       </div>
15349       <div class="tags">
15350
15351
15352         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>.
15353
15354
15355       </div>
15356     </div>
15357     <div class="padding"></div>
15358
15359     <div class="entry">
15360       <div class="title">
15361         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
15362       </div>
15363       <div class="date">
15364         27th July 2010
15365       </div>
15366       <div class="body">
15367         <p>I discovered this while doing
15368 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
15369 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
15370 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
15371 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
15372 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
15373
15374 <p>An example is from todays
15375 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
15376 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
15377 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
15378 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
15379 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
15380 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
15381 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
15382
15383 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
15384
15385 <blockquote><pre>
15386 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
15387  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
15388   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
15389 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
15390  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
15391 </pre></blockquote>
15392
15393 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
15394 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
15395 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
15396 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
15397 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
15398 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
15399 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
15400 of dependency loops.</p>
15401
15402 <p>Thanks to
15403 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
15404 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
15405 dependencies
15406 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
15407 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
15408
15409 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
15410 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
15411 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
15412 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
15413 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
15414 it.</p>
15415
15416       </div>
15417       <div class="tags">
15418
15419
15420         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>.
15421
15422
15423       </div>
15424     </div>
15425     <div class="padding"></div>
15426
15427     <div class="entry">
15428       <div class="title">
15429         <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>
15430       </div>
15431       <div class="date">
15432         27th July 2010
15433       </div>
15434       <div class="body">
15435         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
15436 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
15437 completed.</p>
15438
15439 <blockquote>
15440 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
15441 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
15442 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
15443 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
15444 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
15445 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
15446 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
15447 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
15448
15449 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
15450 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
15451 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
15452
15453 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
15454 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
15455 much.</p>
15456
15457 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
15458
15459 <ul>
15460 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
15461 <ul>
15462   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
15463          combination with some new artwork
15464   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
15465   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
15466   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
15467   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
15468   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
15469   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
15470   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
15471   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
15472   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
15473 </ul></li>
15474 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
15475     Enabled for:
15476 <ul>
15477   <li>PAM
15478   <li>LDAP
15479   <li>IMAP
15480   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
15481 </ul>
15482 </li>
15483 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
15484 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
15485     fetched from LDAP.</li>
15486 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
15487 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
15488 </ul>
15489 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
15490
15491 <ul>
15492 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
15493     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
15494     for testing.</li>
15495 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
15496     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
15497     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
15498 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
15499 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
15500 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
15501 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
15502     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
15503 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
15504     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
15505     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
15506 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
15507     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
15508     and help out with translations.</li>
15509 </ul>
15510
15511 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
15512
15513 <ul>
15514 <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>
15515 <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>
15516 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
15517 </ul>
15518 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
15519
15520 <ul>
15521 <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>
15522 <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>
15523 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
15524 </ul>
15525
15526 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
15527 get closer to the final release.</p>
15528
15529 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
15530
15531 <ul>
15532 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
15533 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
15534 </ul>
15535
15536 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
15537 <ul>
15538 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
15539 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
15540 </ul>
15541 <p>How to report bugs:
15542 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
15543
15544 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
15545 </blockquote>
15546
15547       </div>
15548       <div class="tags">
15549
15550
15551         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>.
15552
15553
15554       </div>
15555     </div>
15556     <div class="padding"></div>
15557
15558     <div class="entry">
15559       <div class="title">
15560         <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>
15561       </div>
15562       <div class="date">
15563         25th July 2010
15564       </div>
15565       <div class="body">
15566         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
15567 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
15568 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
15569 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
15570 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
15571
15572 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
15573 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
15574 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
15575 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
15576 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
15577 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
15578 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
15579
15580 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
15581 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
15582 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
15583 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
15584 up. :)</p>
15585
15586 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
15587 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
15588 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
15589
15590 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
15591 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
15592 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
15593 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
15594 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
15595 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
15596 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
15597 release another day.</p>
15598
15599 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
15600 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15601
15602       </div>
15603       <div class="tags">
15604
15605
15606         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>.
15607
15608
15609       </div>
15610     </div>
15611     <div class="padding"></div>
15612
15613     <div class="entry">
15614       <div class="title">
15615         <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>
15616       </div>
15617       <div class="date">
15618         18th July 2010
15619       </div>
15620       <div class="body">
15621         <p>Thanks to
15622 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
15623 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
15624 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
15625 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
15626 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
15627 only available from the development server, until more experience is
15628 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
15629
15630 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
15631 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
15632 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
15633 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
15634 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
15635 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
15636 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
15637
15638       </div>
15639       <div class="tags">
15640
15641
15642         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>.
15643
15644
15645       </div>
15646     </div>
15647     <div class="padding"></div>
15648
15649     <div class="entry">
15650       <div class="title">
15651         <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>
15652       </div>
15653       <div class="date">
15654         17th July 2010
15655       </div>
15656       <div class="body">
15657         <p>This is a
15658 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
15659 on my
15660 <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
15661 work</a> on
15662 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
15663 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
15664
15665 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
15666 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
15667 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
15668 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
15669
15670 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
15671 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
15672 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
15673
15674 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
15675
15676 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
15677 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
15678 the web.
15679
15680 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
15681 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
15682 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
15683 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
15684 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
15685 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
15686
15687 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
15688 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
15689 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
15690 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
15691 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
15692 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
15693 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
15694 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
15695 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
15696 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
15697 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
15698 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
15699 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
15700 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
15701 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
15702 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
15703
15704 <blockquote><pre>
15705 ldapsearch -h ldap \
15706   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
15707   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
15708   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
15709   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
15710   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
15711   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
15712
15713 ldapsearch -h ldap \
15714   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
15715   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
15716   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
15717   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
15718   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
15719 </pre></blockquote>
15720
15721 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
15722 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
15723 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
15724 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15725 also exist.</p>
15726
15727 <blockquote><pre>
15728 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15729 objectclass: top
15730 objectclass: dnsdomain
15731 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
15732 dc: tjener
15733 arecord: 10.0.2.2
15734 associateddomain: tjener.intern
15735
15736 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15737 objectclass: top
15738 objectclass: dnsdomain2
15739 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
15740 dc: 2
15741 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
15742 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
15743 </pre></blockquote>
15744
15745 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
15746 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
15747 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
15748 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
15749 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
15750 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
15751 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
15752 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
15753 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
15754 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
15755 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
15756 instead.</p>
15757
15758 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
15759 like this:</p>
15760
15761 <blockquote><pre>
15762 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
15763   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
15764   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
15765   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
15766   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
15767   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
15768
15769 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
15770   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
15771 </pre></blockquote>
15772
15773 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
15774 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
15775 reverse lookups.</p>
15776
15777 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
15778 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
15779 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
15780 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
15781
15782 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
15783 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
15784 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
15785
15786 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
15787 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
15788 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
15789 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
15790 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
15791
15792 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
15793 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
15794 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
15795 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
15796 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
15797
15798 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
15799 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
15800 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
15801 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
15802 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
15803 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
15804
15805 <blockquote><pre>
15806 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
15807     SUP top
15808     AUXILIARY
15809     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
15810           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
15811           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
15812           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
15813           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
15814     ))
15815 </pre></blockquote>
15816
15817 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
15818 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
15819 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
15820 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
15821 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
15822 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
15823
15824 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
15825
15826 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
15827 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
15828 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
15829 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
15830 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
15831
15832 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
15833 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
15834 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
15835 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
15836
15837 <blockquote><pre>
15838 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
15839 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
15840 </pre></blockquote>
15841
15842 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
15843 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
15844 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
15845 search result is this entry:</p>
15846
15847 <blockquote><pre>
15848 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15849 cn: dhcp
15850 objectClass: top
15851 objectClass: dhcpServer
15852 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15853 </pre></blockquote>
15854
15855 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
15856 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
15857 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
15858 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
15859 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
15860 The search result is this entry:</p>
15861
15862 <blockquote><pre>
15863 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15864 cn: DHCP Config
15865 objectClass: top
15866 objectClass: dhcpService
15867 objectClass: dhcpOptions
15868 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15869 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
15870 dhcpStatements: authoritative
15871 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
15872 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
15873 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
15874 </pre></blockquote>
15875
15876 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
15877 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
15878 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
15879 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
15880 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
15881 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
15882 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
15883 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
15884 related computer objects.</p>
15885
15886 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
15887 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
15888 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
15889 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
15890 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
15891 like:</p>
15892
15893 <blockquote><pre>
15894 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15895 cn: hostname
15896 objectClass: top
15897 objectClass: dhcpHost
15898 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
15899 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
15900 </pre></blockquote>
15901
15902 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
15903 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
15904 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
15905 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
15906 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
15907 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
15908 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
15909 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
15910 structural object class.
15911
15912 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
15913
15914 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
15915 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
15916 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
15917 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
15918 in the configuration.</p>
15919
15920 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
15921 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
15922 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
15923 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
15924 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
15925 structure.</p>
15926
15927 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
15928 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
15929
15930 <blockquote><pre>
15931 ou=services
15932   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
15933     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
15934     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
15935       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
15936         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
15937     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
15938       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
15939         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
15940     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
15941       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
15942 </pre></blockquote>
15943
15944 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
15945 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
15946 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
15947 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
15948
15949 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
15950 like this:</p>
15951
15952 <blockquote><pre>
15953 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15954 dc: hostname
15955 objectClass: top
15956 objectClass: dhcpHost
15957 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
15958 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
15959 associateddomain: hostname.intern
15960 arecord: 10.11.12.13
15961 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
15962 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
15963 </pre></blockquote>
15964
15965 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
15966 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
15967 auxiliary object class.</p>
15968
15969       </div>
15970       <div class="tags">
15971
15972
15973         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>.
15974
15975
15976       </div>
15977     </div>
15978     <div class="padding"></div>
15979
15980     <div class="entry">
15981       <div class="title">
15982         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
15983       </div>
15984       <div class="date">
15985         14th July 2010
15986       </div>
15987       <div class="body">
15988         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
15989 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
15990 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
15991 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
15992 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
15993
15994 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
15995 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
15996
15997 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
15998 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
15999 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
16000 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
16001 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
16002 to a slave DNS server.</p>
16003
16004 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
16005 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
16006 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
16007 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
16008 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
16009 seem to work.</p>
16010
16011 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
16012 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
16013 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
16014 this:</p>
16015
16016 <blockquote><pre>
16017   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16018   cn: hostname
16019   objectClass: dhcphost
16020   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
16021   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
16022   associateddomain: hostname.intern
16023   arecord: 10.11.12.13
16024   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
16025   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
16026   ldapconfigsound: Y
16027 </pre></blockquote>
16028
16029 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
16030 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
16031 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
16032 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
16033
16034 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
16035 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
16036 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
16037 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
16038 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
16039 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
16040 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
16041 might be a good place to put it.</p>
16042
16043 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
16044 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16045
16046       </div>
16047       <div class="tags">
16048
16049
16050         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>.
16051
16052
16053       </div>
16054     </div>
16055     <div class="padding"></div>
16056
16057     <div class="entry">
16058       <div class="title">
16059         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
16060       </div>
16061       <div class="date">
16062         11th July 2010
16063       </div>
16064       <div class="body">
16065         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
16066 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
16067 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
16068 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
16069
16070 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
16071 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
16072 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
16073 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
16074 LTSP clients.</p>
16075
16076 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
16077 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
16078 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
16079
16080 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
16081 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
16082 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
16083
16084 <blockquote><pre>
16085 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
16086 #
16087 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
16088 #
16089 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
16090 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
16091 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
16092 #
16093 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
16094 # existence of attribute names.
16095 #
16096 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
16097 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
16098 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
16099 #
16100 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
16101 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
16102 #
16103 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
16104 #     SUP top
16105 #     AUXILIARY
16106 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
16107
16108 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
16109 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
16110     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
16111     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
16112         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
16113         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
16114             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
16115             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
16116             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
16117             # bass value on to clients
16118             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
16119         done
16120     done
16121 fi
16122 </pre></blockquote>
16123
16124 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
16125 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
16126 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
16127 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
16128 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
16129
16130 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
16131 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16132
16133 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
16134 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
16135 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
16136 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
16137 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
16138 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
16139
16140       </div>
16141       <div class="tags">
16142
16143
16144         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>.
16145
16146
16147       </div>
16148     </div>
16149     <div class="padding"></div>
16150
16151     <div class="entry">
16152       <div class="title">
16153         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
16154       </div>
16155       <div class="date">
16156          9th July 2010
16157       </div>
16158       <div class="body">
16159         <p>Since
16160 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
16161 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
16162 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
16163 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
16164 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
16165 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
16166 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
16167 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
16168 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
16169 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
16170 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
16171 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
16172 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
16173
16174       </div>
16175       <div class="tags">
16176
16177
16178         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>.
16179
16180
16181       </div>
16182     </div>
16183     <div class="padding"></div>
16184
16185     <div class="entry">
16186       <div class="title">
16187         <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>
16188       </div>
16189       <div class="date">
16190          3rd July 2010
16191       </div>
16192       <div class="body">
16193         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
16194 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
16195 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
16196 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
16197 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
16198 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
16199 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
16200 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
16201
16202 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
16203 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
16204 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
16205 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
16206 publish the difference.</p>
16207
16208 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
16209
16210 <blockquote><p>
16211   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
16212   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
16213   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
16214   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
16215   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
16216   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
16217   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
16218   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
16219 </p></blockquote>
16220
16221 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
16222
16223 <blockquote><p>
16224   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
16225   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
16226   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
16227   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
16228   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
16229   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
16230   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
16231   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
16232   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
16233   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
16234   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
16235   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
16236   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
16237   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
16238   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
16239   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
16240   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
16241   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
16242   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
16243   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
16244 </p></blockquote>
16245
16246 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
16247
16248 <blockquote><p>
16249   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
16250   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
16251   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
16252   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
16253   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
16254   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
16255   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
16256   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
16257   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
16258   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
16259   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
16260   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
16261   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
16262   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
16263   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
16264   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
16265   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
16266   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
16267   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
16268   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
16269   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
16270 </p></blockquote>
16271
16272 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
16273
16274 <blockquote><p>
16275   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
16276   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
16277   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
16278 </p></blockquote>
16279
16280 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
16281 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
16282 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
16283 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
16284 the difference somewhat.
16285
16286       </div>
16287       <div class="tags">
16288
16289
16290         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>.
16291
16292
16293       </div>
16294     </div>
16295     <div class="padding"></div>
16296
16297     <div class="entry">
16298       <div class="title">
16299         <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>
16300       </div>
16301       <div class="date">
16302          1st July 2010
16303       </div>
16304       <div class="body">
16305         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
16306 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
16307 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
16308 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
16309 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
16310 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
16311 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
16312 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
16313 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
16314
16315 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
16316
16317 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
16318 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
16319 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
16320 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
16321 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
16322 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
16323 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
16324 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
16325 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
16326 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
16327 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
16328 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
16329 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
16330 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
16331 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
16332
16333 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
16334
16335 <blockquote><pre>
16336 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
16337 </pre></blockquote>
16338
16339 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
16340 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
16341 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
16342 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
16343 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
16344 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
16345 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
16346 on how to get this working.</p>
16347
16348 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
16349 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
16350 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
16351 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
16352 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
16353 instructions I found in the
16354 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
16355 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
16356
16357 <blockquote><pre>
16358         debug-level             0
16359         reload-count            unlimited
16360         paranoia                no
16361
16362         enable-cache            passwd          yes
16363         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
16364         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
16365         suggested-size          passwd          211
16366         check-files             passwd          yes
16367         persistent              passwd          yes
16368         shared                  passwd          yes
16369         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
16370         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
16371
16372         enable-cache            group           yes
16373         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
16374         negative-time-to-live   group           20
16375         suggested-size          group           211
16376         check-files             group           yes
16377         persistent              group           yes
16378         shared                  group           yes
16379         max-db-size             group           33554432
16380         auto-propagate          group           yes
16381
16382         enable-cache            hosts           no
16383         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
16384         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
16385         suggested-size          hosts           211
16386         check-files             hosts           yes
16387         persistent              hosts           yes
16388         shared                  hosts           yes
16389         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
16390
16391         enable-cache            services        yes
16392         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
16393         negative-time-to-live   services        20
16394         suggested-size          services        211
16395         check-files             services        yes
16396         persistent              services        yes
16397         shared                  services        yes
16398         max-db-size             services        33554432
16399 </pre></blockquote>
16400
16401 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
16402 automatically like the one provided in
16403 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
16404 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
16405 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
16406 look like this:</p>
16407
16408 <blockquote><pre>
16409 passwd:         files ldap
16410 group:          files ldap
16411 shadow:         files ldap
16412 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
16413 networks:       files
16414 protocols:      files
16415 services:       files
16416 ethers:         files
16417 rpc:            files
16418 netgroup:       files ldap
16419 </pre></blockquote>
16420
16421 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
16422 shadow and netgroup.</p>
16423
16424 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
16425 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
16426 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
16427 attributes cached.
16428
16429 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
16430   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
16431
16432 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
16433 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
16434 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
16435 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
16436 discovered sssd.</p>
16437
16438 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
16439
16440 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
16441 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
16442 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
16443 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
16444 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
16445 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
16446 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
16447 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
16448 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
16449 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
16450 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
16451 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
16452 version 1.2 is now in testing.
16453
16454 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
16455 roaming setup I want</p>
16456
16457 <blockquote><pre>
16458 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
16459 </pre></blockquote>
16460
16461 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
16462 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
16463
16464 <blockquote><pre>
16465 [sssd]
16466 config_file_version = 2
16467 reconnection_retries = 3
16468 sbus_timeout = 30
16469 services = nss, pam
16470 domains = INTERN
16471
16472 [nss]
16473 filter_groups = root
16474 filter_users = root
16475 reconnection_retries = 3
16476
16477 [pam]
16478 reconnection_retries = 3
16479
16480 [domain/INTERN]
16481 enumerate = false
16482 cache_credentials = true
16483
16484 id_provider = ldap
16485 auth_provider = ldap
16486 chpass_provider = ldap
16487
16488 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
16489 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16490 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
16491 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
16492 </pre></blockquote>
16493
16494 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
16495 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
16496
16497 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
16498 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
16499 modify it manually.</p>
16500
16501 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
16502 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16503
16504       </div>
16505       <div class="tags">
16506
16507
16508         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>.
16509
16510
16511       </div>
16512     </div>
16513     <div class="padding"></div>
16514
16515     <div class="entry">
16516       <div class="title">
16517         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
16518       </div>
16519       <div class="date">
16520         28th June 2010
16521       </div>
16522       <div class="body">
16523         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
16524 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
16525 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
16526 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
16527 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
16528 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
16529 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
16530 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
16531 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
16532 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
16533
16534 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
16535 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
16536 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
16537 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
16538 released.</p>
16539
16540 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
16541 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
16542 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
16543 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
16544
16545 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
16546 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16547
16548 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
16549 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
16550 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
16551 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
16552 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
16553
16554       </div>
16555       <div class="tags">
16556
16557
16558         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>.
16559
16560
16561       </div>
16562     </div>
16563     <div class="padding"></div>
16564
16565     <div class="entry">
16566       <div class="title">
16567         <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>
16568       </div>
16569       <div class="date">
16570         24th June 2010
16571       </div>
16572       <div class="body">
16573         <p>A while back, I
16574 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
16575 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
16576 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
16577 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
16578
16579 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
16580 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
16581 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
16582 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
16583
16584 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
16585 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
16586 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
16587 Debian Edu.</p>
16588
16589 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
16590 the
16591 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
16592 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
16593 available today from IETF.</p>
16594
16595 <pre>
16596 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
16597 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
16598 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
16599  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
16600         NAME 'dhcpHost'
16601         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
16602 -       SUP top
16603 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
16604         MUST cn
16605         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
16606         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
16607 </pre>
16608
16609 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
16610 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
16611 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
16612
16613 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
16614 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16615
16616       </div>
16617       <div class="tags">
16618
16619
16620         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>.
16621
16622
16623       </div>
16624     </div>
16625     <div class="padding"></div>
16626
16627     <div class="entry">
16628       <div class="title">
16629         <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>
16630       </div>
16631       <div class="date">
16632         16th June 2010
16633       </div>
16634       <div class="body">
16635         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
16636 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
16637 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
16638 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
16639 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
16640 this:
16641
16642 <blockquote><pre>
16643 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
16644 tasksel --new-install
16645 </pre></blockquote>
16646
16647 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
16648 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
16649 any output what so ever.
16650
16651 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
16652 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
16653 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
16654 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
16655 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
16656 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
16657 code like this:
16658
16659 <blockquote><pre>
16660 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
16661 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
16662 $cmd
16663 </pre></blockquote>
16664
16665 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
16666 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
16667 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
16668 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
16669 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
16670 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
16671 installation.</p>
16672
16673 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
16674 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
16675 like this.</p>
16676
16677       </div>
16678       <div class="tags">
16679
16680
16681         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>.
16682
16683
16684       </div>
16685     </div>
16686     <div class="padding"></div>
16687
16688     <div class="entry">
16689       <div class="title">
16690         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
16691       </div>
16692       <div class="date">
16693         13th June 2010
16694       </div>
16695       <div class="body">
16696         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
16697 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
16698 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
16699 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
16700 pages.</p>
16701
16702 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
16703 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
16704 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
16705 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
16706 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
16707 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
16708 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
16709 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
16710 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
16711 see how the project is doing.</p>
16712
16713 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
16714 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
16715 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
16716 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
16717 Windows.  This is great.</p>
16718
16719       </div>
16720       <div class="tags">
16721
16722
16723         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>.
16724
16725
16726       </div>
16727     </div>
16728     <div class="padding"></div>
16729
16730     <div class="entry">
16731       <div class="title">
16732         <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>
16733       </div>
16734       <div class="date">
16735         13th June 2010
16736       </div>
16737       <div class="body">
16738         <p>My
16739 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
16740 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
16741 finally made the upgrade logs available from
16742 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
16743 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
16744 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
16745 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
16746
16747 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
16748 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
16749 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
16750 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
16751 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
16752 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
16753 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
16754 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
16755
16756 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
16757 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
16758 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
16759 too surprising.</p>
16760
16761 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
16762 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
16763 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
16764 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
16765 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
16766 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
16767 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
16768 continue.</p>
16769
16770 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
16771 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
16772   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
16773   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
16774   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
16775   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
16776   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
16777   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
16778   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
16779   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
16780   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
16781   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
16782   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
16783   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
16784   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
16785   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
16786   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
16787   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
16788   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
16789   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
16790   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
16791   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
16792   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
16793   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
16794   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
16795   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
16796   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
16797   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
16798   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
16799   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
16800
16801 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
16802
16803 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
16804   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
16805   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
16806   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
16807   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
16808   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
16809   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
16810   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
16811   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
16812   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
16813   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
16814   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
16815   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
16816   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
16817   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
16818   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
16819   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
16820   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
16821   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
16822   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
16823   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
16824   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
16825   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
16826   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
16827   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
16828   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
16829   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
16830   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
16831   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
16832   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
16833   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
16834   zip</p>
16835
16836 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
16837
16838 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
16839   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
16840   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
16841   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
16842   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
16843   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
16844   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
16845   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
16846   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
16847   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
16848   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
16849   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
16850   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
16851   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
16852   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
16853   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
16854   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
16855   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
16856   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
16857   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
16858   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
16859   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
16860   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
16861   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
16862   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
16863   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
16864   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
16865   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
16866
16867 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
16868 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
16869   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
16870   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
16871   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
16872   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
16873   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
16874   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
16875   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
16876   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
16877   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
16878   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
16879   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
16880   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
16881   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
16882   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
16883   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
16884   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
16885   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
16886   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
16887   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
16888   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
16889   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
16890   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
16891   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
16892   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
16893   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
16894   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
16895   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
16896   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
16897   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
16898   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
16899   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
16900   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
16901   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
16902   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
16903   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
16904   xulrunner-1.9</p>
16905
16906
16907       </div>
16908       <div class="tags">
16909
16910
16911         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>.
16912
16913
16914       </div>
16915     </div>
16916     <div class="padding"></div>
16917
16918     <div class="entry">
16919       <div class="title">
16920         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
16921       </div>
16922       <div class="date">
16923         11th June 2010
16924       </div>
16925       <div class="body">
16926         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
16927 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
16928 have been discovered and reported in the process
16929 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
16930 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
16931 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
16932 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
16933 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
16934
16935 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
16936 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
16937 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
16938 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
16939 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
16940 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
16941
16942 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
16943 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
16944 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
16945 is created.  The bug report
16946 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
16947 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
16948 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
16949 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
16950 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
16951 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
16952 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
16953 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
16954 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
16955 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
16956 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
16957 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
16958 Debian Squeeze.</p>
16959
16960 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
16961 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
16962 trick:</p>
16963
16964 <blockquote><pre>
16965 #!/bin/sh
16966 set -ex
16967
16968 if [ "$1" ] ; then
16969     desktop=$1
16970 else
16971     desktop=gnome
16972 fi
16973
16974 from=lenny
16975 to=squeeze
16976
16977 exec &lt; /dev/null
16978 unset LANG
16979 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
16980 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
16981 fuser -mv .
16982 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
16983 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
16984 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
16985 #!/bin/sh
16986 exit 101
16987 EOF
16988 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
16989 exit_cleanup() {
16990     umount $tmpdir/proc
16991 }
16992 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
16993 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
16994 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
16995
16996 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
16997
16998 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
16999 # to return the correct answers.
17000 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
17001     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
17002
17003 # Include the desktop and laptop task
17004 for test in desktop laptop ; do
17005     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
17006 #!/bin/sh
17007 exit 2
17008 EOF
17009     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
17010 done
17011
17012 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
17013 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
17014 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
17015 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
17016
17017 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
17018 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
17019 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
17020 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
17021 fuser -mv
17022 </pre></blockquote>
17023
17024 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
17025 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
17026 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
17027 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
17028 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
17029 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
17030
17031 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
17032 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
17033 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
17034 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
17035 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
17036 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
17037 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
17038
17039 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
17040 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
17041 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
17042 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
17043 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
17044 packages.</p>
17045
17046       </div>
17047       <div class="tags">
17048
17049
17050         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>.
17051
17052
17053       </div>
17054     </div>
17055     <div class="padding"></div>
17056
17057     <div class="entry">
17058       <div class="title">
17059         <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>
17060       </div>
17061       <div class="date">
17062          6th June 2010
17063       </div>
17064       <div class="body">
17065         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
17066 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
17067 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
17068 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
17069 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
17070 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
17071 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
17072
17073 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
17074 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
17075 COLUMNS):</p>
17076
17077 <blockquote><pre>
17078 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
17079 previous=N
17080 PREVLEVEL=
17081 RUNLEVEL=
17082 runlevel=S
17083 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
17084 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
17085 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
17086 </pre></blockquote>
17087
17088 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
17089 script.</p>
17090
17091 <blockquote><pre>
17092 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
17093 previous=N
17094 PREVLEVEL=N
17095 RUNLEVEL=S
17096 runlevel=S
17097 </pre></blockquote>
17098
17099 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
17100 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
17101 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
17102
17103 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
17104 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
17105 choice.</p>
17106
17107       </div>
17108       <div class="tags">
17109
17110
17111         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>.
17112
17113
17114       </div>
17115     </div>
17116     <div class="padding"></div>
17117
17118     <div class="entry">
17119       <div class="title">
17120         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
17121       </div>
17122       <div class="date">
17123          6th June 2010
17124       </div>
17125       <div class="body">
17126         <p>Via the
17127 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
17128 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
17129 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
17130 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
17131 following the standards wars of today.</p>
17132
17133       </div>
17134       <div class="tags">
17135
17136
17137         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>.
17138
17139
17140       </div>
17141     </div>
17142     <div class="padding"></div>
17143
17144     <div class="entry">
17145       <div class="title">
17146         <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>
17147       </div>
17148       <div class="date">
17149          3rd June 2010
17150       </div>
17151       <div class="body">
17152         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
17153 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
17154 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
17155 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
17156 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
17157
17158 <blockquote><pre>
17159 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
17160   vendor                    count
17161   Dell Computer Corporation     1
17162     PowerEdge 1750              1
17163   IBM                           1
17164     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
17165   Intel                         2
17166   [no-dmi-info]                 3
17167 maintainer:~#
17168 </pre></blockquote>
17169
17170 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
17171 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
17172 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
17173 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
17174 option to list the individual machines.</p>
17175
17176 <p>A larger list is
17177 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
17178 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
17179 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
17180 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
17181 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
17182 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
17183 collector.</p>
17184
17185       </div>
17186       <div class="tags">
17187
17188
17189         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>.
17190
17191
17192       </div>
17193     </div>
17194     <div class="padding"></div>
17195
17196     <div class="entry">
17197       <div class="title">
17198         <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>
17199       </div>
17200       <div class="date">
17201          1st June 2010
17202       </div>
17203       <div class="body">
17204         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
17205 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
17206 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
17207 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
17208 wait.</p>
17209
17210 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
17211 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
17212 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
17213 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
17214 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
17215 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
17216
17217 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
17218 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
17219 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
17220 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
17221 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
17222 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
17223 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
17224 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
17225
17226 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
17227
17228       </div>
17229       <div class="tags">
17230
17231
17232         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>.
17233
17234
17235       </div>
17236     </div>
17237     <div class="padding"></div>
17238
17239     <div class="entry">
17240       <div class="title">
17241         <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>
17242       </div>
17243       <div class="date">
17244         27th May 2010
17245       </div>
17246       <div class="body">
17247         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
17248 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
17249 issues are known and should be solved:
17250
17251 <p><ul>
17252
17253 <li>The wicd package seen to
17254 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
17255 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
17256 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
17257 seem to be on the case.</li>
17258
17259 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
17260 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
17261 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
17262 maintainer is on the case.</li>
17263
17264 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
17265 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
17266 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
17267 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
17268 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
17269 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
17270 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
17271 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
17272
17273 </ul></p>
17274
17275 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
17276 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
17277 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
17278 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
17279
17280 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
17281 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
17282 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
17283 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
17284
17285 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
17286
17287       </div>
17288       <div class="tags">
17289
17290
17291         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>.
17292
17293
17294       </div>
17295     </div>
17296     <div class="padding"></div>
17297
17298     <div class="entry">
17299       <div class="title">
17300         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
17301       </div>
17302       <div class="date">
17303         22nd May 2010
17304       </div>
17305       <div class="body">
17306         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
17307 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
17308 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
17309 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
17310
17311 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
17312 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
17313 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
17314 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
17315 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
17316 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
17317 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
17318 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
17319 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
17320 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
17321 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
17322 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
17323 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
17324 going to work.</p>
17325
17326 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
17327 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
17328 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
17329 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
17330 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
17331 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
17332 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
17333 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
17334 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
17335 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
17336 Edu.</p>
17337
17338 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
17339 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
17340 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
17341 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
17342 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
17343 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
17344
17345 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
17346 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
17347
17348       </div>
17349       <div class="tags">
17350
17351
17352         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>.
17353
17354
17355       </div>
17356     </div>
17357     <div class="padding"></div>
17358
17359     <div class="entry">
17360       <div class="title">
17361         <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>
17362       </div>
17363       <div class="date">
17364         19th May 2010
17365       </div>
17366       <div class="body">
17367         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
17368 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
17369 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
17370 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
17371 into unstable.  The
17372 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
17373 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
17374 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
17375 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
17376 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
17377 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
17378 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
17379
17380 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
17381 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
17382 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
17383 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
17384 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
17385 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
17386 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
17387 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
17388
17389 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
17390 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
17391 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
17392 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
17393 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
17394 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
17395 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
17396
17397 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
17398 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
17399 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
17400 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
17401 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
17402 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
17403 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
17404 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
17405 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
17406 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
17407 on the home directory servers.</p>
17408
17409 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
17410 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
17411 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
17412 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
17413 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
17414 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
17415
17416 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
17417 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17418
17419       </div>
17420       <div class="tags">
17421
17422
17423         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>.
17424
17425
17426       </div>
17427     </div>
17428     <div class="padding"></div>
17429
17430     <div class="entry">
17431       <div class="title">
17432         <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>
17433       </div>
17434       <div class="date">
17435         14th May 2010
17436       </div>
17437       <div class="body">
17438         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
17439 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
17440 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
17441 expected, if I am to believe the
17442 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
17443 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
17444 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
17445 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
17446 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
17447 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
17448 version.</p>
17449
17450 More information about
17451 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
17452 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
17453 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
17454 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
17455
17456 <blockquote><pre>
17457 CONCURRENCY=none
17458 </pre></blockquote>
17459
17460 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
17461 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
17462 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
17463 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
17464
17465       </div>
17466       <div class="tags">
17467
17468
17469         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>.
17470
17471
17472       </div>
17473     </div>
17474     <div class="padding"></div>
17475
17476     <div class="entry">
17477       <div class="title">
17478         <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>
17479       </div>
17480       <div class="date">
17481         14th May 2010
17482       </div>
17483       <div class="body">
17484         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
17485 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
17486 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
17487 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
17488 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
17489 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
17490 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
17491 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
17492
17493 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
17494 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
17495 this on the collector host:</p>
17496
17497 <blockquote><pre>
17498 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
17499 </pre></blockquote>
17500
17501 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
17502 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
17503
17504 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
17505 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
17506 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
17507 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
17508 written yet.</p>
17509
17510       </div>
17511       <div class="tags">
17512
17513
17514         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>.
17515
17516
17517       </div>
17518     </div>
17519     <div class="padding"></div>
17520
17521     <div class="entry">
17522       <div class="title">
17523         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
17524       </div>
17525       <div class="date">
17526         13th May 2010
17527       </div>
17528       <div class="body">
17529         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
17530 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
17531 has been
17532 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
17533
17534 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
17535 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
17536 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
17537 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
17538 based boot system.  Tollef is
17539 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
17540 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
17541 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
17542 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
17543 at the moment do not.</p>
17544
17545 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
17546 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
17547 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
17548 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
17549 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
17550 way forward.</p>
17551
17552 <p>In the mean time, based on the
17553 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
17554 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
17555 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
17556 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
17557 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
17558 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
17559 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
17560 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
17561
17562       </div>
17563       <div class="tags">
17564
17565
17566         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>.
17567
17568
17569       </div>
17570     </div>
17571     <div class="padding"></div>
17572
17573     <div class="entry">
17574       <div class="title">
17575         <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>
17576       </div>
17577       <div class="date">
17578          6th May 2010
17579       </div>
17580       <div class="body">
17581         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
17582 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
17583 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
17584 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
17585 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
17586 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
17587 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
17588
17589 <blockquote><pre>
17590 CONCURRENCY=makefile
17591 </pre></blockquote>
17592
17593 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
17594 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
17595 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
17596 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
17597 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
17598 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
17599 make this happen.</p>
17600
17601 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
17602 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
17603 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
17604 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
17605 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
17606
17607 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
17608 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
17609 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
17610 fix the remaining issues.</p>
17611
17612 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
17613 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
17614 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
17615 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
17616
17617       </div>
17618       <div class="tags">
17619
17620
17621         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>.
17622
17623
17624       </div>
17625     </div>
17626     <div class="padding"></div>
17627
17628     <div class="entry">
17629       <div class="title">
17630         <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>
17631       </div>
17632       <div class="date">
17633          2nd May 2010
17634       </div>
17635       <div class="body">
17636         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
17637 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
17638 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
17639
17640 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
17641 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
17642 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
17643 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
17644 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
17645
17646 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
17647 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
17648
17649 <blockquote><pre>
17650 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
17651 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
17652 Password expires                                        : never
17653 Password inactive                                       : never
17654 Account expires                                         : never
17655 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
17656 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
17657 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
17658 root@tjener:~#
17659 </pre></blockquote>
17660
17661 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
17662 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
17663 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
17664 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
17665 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
17666 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
17667
17668 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
17669 intended:</p>
17670
17671 <blockquote><pre>
17672 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
17673 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
17674 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
17675 Password expires                                        : never
17676 Password inactive                                       : never
17677 Account expires                                         : never
17678 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
17679 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
17680 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
17681 root@tjener:~#
17682 </pre></blockquote>
17683
17684 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
17685 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
17686 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
17687
17688 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
17689 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
17690
17691 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
17692 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17693
17694 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
17695 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
17696 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
17697 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
17698 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
17699 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
17700 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
17701
17702 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
17703 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
17704 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
17705 change.</p>
17706
17707       </div>
17708       <div class="tags">
17709
17710
17711         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>.
17712
17713
17714       </div>
17715     </div>
17716     <div class="padding"></div>
17717
17718     <div class="entry">
17719       <div class="title">
17720         <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>
17721       </div>
17722       <div class="date">
17723         28th April 2010
17724       </div>
17725       <div class="body">
17726         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
17727 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
17728 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
17729 and go.</p>
17730
17731 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
17732 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
17733 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
17734 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
17735
17736 <ul>
17737
17738  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
17739    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
17740    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
17741    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
17742    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
17743    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
17744    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
17745    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
17746    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
17747    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
17748    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
17749    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
17750
17751  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
17752    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
17753    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
17754    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
17755    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
17756    or the Fedora developed
17757    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
17758    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
17759
17760  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
17761    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
17762    directory, using unison.</li>
17763
17764  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
17765    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
17766    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
17767    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
17768    implemented.</li>
17769
17770  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
17771    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
17772
17773  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
17774    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
17775    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
17776
17777 </ul>
17778
17779 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
17780 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
17781 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
17782 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
17783 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
17784 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
17785 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
17786 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
17787 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
17788
17789 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
17790 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17791
17792       </div>
17793       <div class="tags">
17794
17795
17796         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>.
17797
17798
17799       </div>
17800     </div>
17801     <div class="padding"></div>
17802
17803     <div class="entry">
17804       <div class="title">
17805         <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>
17806       </div>
17807       <div class="date">
17808         19th April 2010
17809       </div>
17810       <div class="body">
17811         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
17812 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
17813 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
17814 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
17815 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
17816 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
17817 restrictions on the web, for example from
17818 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
17819 epub-version from
17820 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
17821 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
17822 strongly recommend this book.</p>
17823
17824       </div>
17825       <div class="tags">
17826
17827
17828         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>.
17829
17830
17831       </div>
17832     </div>
17833     <div class="padding"></div>
17834
17835     <div class="entry">
17836       <div class="title">
17837         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
17838       </div>
17839       <div class="date">
17840         14th April 2010
17841       </div>
17842       <div class="body">
17843         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
17844 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
17845 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
17846 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
17847 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
17848 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
17849 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
17850 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
17851 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
17852
17853 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
17854 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
17855 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
17856 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
17857 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
17858
17859 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
17860 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
17861
17862 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
17863 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
17864 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
17865 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
17866 to work properly.</p>
17867
17868 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
17869 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
17870 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
17871 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
17872 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
17873 time.</p>
17874
17875 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
17876 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
17877 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
17878 up in a few days.</p>
17879
17880       </div>
17881       <div class="tags">
17882
17883
17884         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>.
17885
17886
17887       </div>
17888     </div>
17889     <div class="padding"></div>
17890
17891     <div class="entry">
17892       <div class="title">
17893         <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>
17894       </div>
17895       <div class="date">
17896          6th March 2010
17897       </div>
17898       <div class="body">
17899         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
17900 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
17901 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
17902 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
17903 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
17904 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
17905
17906 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
17907 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
17908 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
17909 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
17910
17911 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
17912 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
17913 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
17914 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
17915 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
17916 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
17917
17918       </div>
17919       <div class="tags">
17920
17921
17922         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>.
17923
17924
17925       </div>
17926     </div>
17927     <div class="padding"></div>
17928
17929     <div class="entry">
17930       <div class="title">
17931         <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>
17932       </div>
17933       <div class="date">
17934         11th February 2010
17935       </div>
17936       <div class="body">
17937         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
17938 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
17939 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
17940 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
17941 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
17942 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
17943 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
17944
17945 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
17946
17947 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
17948 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
17949 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
17950 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
17951
17952       </div>
17953       <div class="tags">
17954
17955
17956         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>.
17957
17958
17959       </div>
17960     </div>
17961     <div class="padding"></div>
17962
17963     <div class="entry">
17964       <div class="title">
17965         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
17966       </div>
17967       <div class="date">
17968         27th January 2010
17969       </div>
17970       <div class="body">
17971         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
17972 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
17973 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
17974 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
17975 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
17976 further.</p>
17977
17978 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
17979 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
17980 configured to be a server for the
17981 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
17982 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
17983 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
17984 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
17985 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
17986 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
17987 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
17988 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
17989 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
17990 and Nagios configuration.</p>
17991
17992 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
17993 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
17994 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
17995 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
17996
17997 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
17998 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
17999 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
18000 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
18001 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
18002 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
18003 the machine.</p>
18004
18005 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
18006 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
18007 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
18008 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
18009
18010 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
18011 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
18012 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
18013 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
18014 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
18015 everything is taken care of.</p>
18016
18017       </div>
18018       <div class="tags">
18019
18020
18021         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>.
18022
18023
18024       </div>
18025     </div>
18026     <div class="padding"></div>
18027
18028     <div class="entry">
18029       <div class="title">
18030         <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>
18031       </div>
18032       <div class="date">
18033         12th August 2009
18034       </div>
18035       <div class="body">
18036         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
18037 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
18038 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
18039 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
18040
18041 <table>
18042 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
18043 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
18044 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
18045 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
18046 </table>
18047
18048 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
18049 got these numbers:</p>
18050
18051 <table>
18052 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
18053 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
18054 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
18055 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
18056 </table>
18057
18058 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
18059
18060 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
18061 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
18062 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
18063 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
18064 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
18065
18066
18067 <table>
18068 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
18069 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
18070 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
18071 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
18072 </table>
18073
18074 <p>And with 'site:no':
18075
18076 <table>
18077 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
18078 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
18079 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
18080 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
18081 </table>
18082
18083 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
18084 numbers.</p>
18085
18086       </div>
18087       <div class="tags">
18088
18089
18090         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>.
18091
18092
18093       </div>
18094     </div>
18095     <div class="padding"></div>
18096
18097     <div class="entry">
18098       <div class="title">
18099         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
18100       </div>
18101       <div class="date">
18102          8th August 2009
18103       </div>
18104       <div class="body">
18105         <p>According to <a
18106 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
18107 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
18108 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
18109 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
18110 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
18111 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
18112 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
18113 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
18114 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
18115 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
18116
18117 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
18118 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
18119 seminar this autumn.</p>
18120
18121       </div>
18122       <div class="tags">
18123
18124
18125         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>.
18126
18127
18128       </div>
18129     </div>
18130     <div class="padding"></div>
18131
18132     <div class="entry">
18133       <div class="title">
18134         <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>
18135       </div>
18136       <div class="date">
18137         27th July 2009
18138       </div>
18139       <div class="body">
18140         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
18141 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
18142 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
18143 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
18144 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
18145 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
18146 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
18147
18148 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
18149 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
18150 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
18151
18152       </div>
18153       <div class="tags">
18154
18155
18156         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>.
18157
18158
18159       </div>
18160     </div>
18161     <div class="padding"></div>
18162
18163     <div class="entry">
18164       <div class="title">
18165         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
18166       </div>
18167       <div class="date">
18168         22nd July 2009
18169       </div>
18170       <div class="body">
18171         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
18172 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
18173 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
18174 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
18175 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
18176 the package up to date.</p>
18177
18178 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
18179 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
18180 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
18181 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
18182 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
18183 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
18184 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
18185 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
18186 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
18187 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
18188 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
18189 working on the future release.</p>
18190
18191 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
18192 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
18193
18194       </div>
18195       <div class="tags">
18196
18197
18198         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>.
18199
18200
18201       </div>
18202     </div>
18203     <div class="padding"></div>
18204
18205     <div class="entry">
18206       <div class="title">
18207         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
18208       </div>
18209       <div class="date">
18210         24th June 2009
18211       </div>
18212       <div class="body">
18213         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
18214 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
18215 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
18216 funded
18217 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
18218 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
18219 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
18220 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
18221 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
18222 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
18223
18224 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
18225 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
18226 boot:</p>
18227
18228 <ul>
18229
18230 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
18231
18232 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
18233    clock is in UTC.</li>
18234
18235 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
18236    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
18237    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
18238
18239 </ul>
18240
18241 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
18242 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
18243 Villegas</a>.
18244
18245 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
18246 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
18247 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
18248 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
18249 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
18250 using this.</p>
18251
18252 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
18253 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
18254 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
18255 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
18256 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
18257 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
18258 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
18259
18260       </div>
18261       <div class="tags">
18262
18263
18264         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>.
18265
18266
18267       </div>
18268     </div>
18269     <div class="padding"></div>
18270
18271     <div class="entry">
18272       <div class="title">
18273         <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>
18274       </div>
18275       <div class="date">
18276          2nd May 2009
18277       </div>
18278       <div class="body">
18279         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
18280 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
18281 do not yet know them.</p>
18282
18283 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
18284 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
18285 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
18286 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
18287 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
18288 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
18289 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
18290 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
18291 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
18292 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
18293 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
18294
18295 <p>The second one is
18296 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
18297 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
18298 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
18299 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
18300 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
18301 and the company behind it is running
18302 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
18303 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
18304 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
18305 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
18306 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
18307 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
18308 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
18309 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
18310
18311 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
18312 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
18313 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
18314 surrounded by today.</p>
18315
18316       </div>
18317       <div class="tags">
18318
18319
18320         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>.
18321
18322
18323       </div>
18324     </div>
18325     <div class="padding"></div>
18326
18327     <div class="entry">
18328       <div class="title">
18329         <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>
18330       </div>
18331       <div class="date">
18332         28th April 2009
18333       </div>
18334       <div class="body">
18335         <p>Julien Blache
18336 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
18337 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
18338 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
18339 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
18340 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
18341 properties.</p>
18342
18343       </div>
18344       <div class="tags">
18345
18346
18347         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>.
18348
18349
18350       </div>
18351     </div>
18352     <div class="padding"></div>
18353
18354     <div class="entry">
18355       <div class="title">
18356         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
18357       </div>
18358       <div class="date">
18359          5th April 2009
18360       </div>
18361       <div class="body">
18362         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
18363 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
18364 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
18365 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
18366 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
18367 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
18368 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
18369 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
18370
18371 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
18372 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
18373 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
18374   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
18375   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
18376
18377 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
18378 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
18379 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
18380 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
18381
18382 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
18383 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
18384 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
18385 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
18386
18387 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
18388 set -e
18389 URL="$1"
18390 SAVEFILE="$2"
18391 DURATION="$3"
18392 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
18393   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
18394   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
18395 pid=$!
18396 sleep $DURATION
18397 kill $pid
18398 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
18399
18400       </div>
18401       <div class="tags">
18402
18403
18404         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>.
18405
18406
18407       </div>
18408     </div>
18409     <div class="padding"></div>
18410
18411     <div class="entry">
18412       <div class="title">
18413         <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>
18414       </div>
18415       <div class="date">
18416         30th March 2009
18417       </div>
18418       <div class="body">
18419         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
18420 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
18421 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
18422 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
18423 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
18424 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
18425 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
18426 application.</p>
18427
18428 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
18429 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
18430 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
18431 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
18432 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
18433 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
18434 blocked from doing so.</p>
18435
18436 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
18437 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
18438 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
18439 requirements change.</p>
18440
18441 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
18442 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
18443 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
18444
18445       </div>
18446       <div class="tags">
18447
18448
18449         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>.
18450
18451
18452       </div>
18453     </div>
18454     <div class="padding"></div>
18455
18456     <div class="entry">
18457       <div class="title">
18458         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
18459       </div>
18460       <div class="date">
18461         29th March 2009
18462       </div>
18463       <div class="body">
18464         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
18465 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
18466 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
18467 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
18468 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
18469 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
18470 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
18471 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
18472 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
18473 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
18474 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
18475 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
18476 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
18477 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
18478 now. :)</p>
18479
18480       </div>
18481       <div class="tags">
18482
18483
18484         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>.
18485
18486
18487       </div>
18488     </div>
18489     <div class="padding"></div>
18490
18491     <div class="entry">
18492       <div class="title">
18493         <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>
18494       </div>
18495       <div class="date">
18496         29th March 2009
18497       </div>
18498       <div class="body">
18499         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
18500 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
18501 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
18502 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
18503 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
18504 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
18505
18506 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
18507 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
18508 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
18509 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
18510 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
18511 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
18512 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
18513 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
18514 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
18515 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
18516 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
18517 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
18518 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
18519
18520 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
18521 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
18522 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
18523 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
18524
18525 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
18526 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
18527
18528 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
18529 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
18530 new IETF work group?</p>
18531
18532       </div>
18533       <div class="tags">
18534
18535
18536         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>.
18537
18538
18539       </div>
18540     </div>
18541     <div class="padding"></div>
18542
18543     <div class="entry">
18544       <div class="title">
18545         <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>
18546       </div>
18547       <div class="date">
18548         28th February 2009
18549       </div>
18550       <div class="body">
18551         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
18552 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
18553 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
18554 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
18555 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
18556 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
18557 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
18558 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
18559 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
18560 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
18561 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
18562 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
18563 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
18564 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
18565 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
18566 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
18567 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
18568 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
18569 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
18570 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
18571 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
18572 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
18573 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
18574 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
18575 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
18576 machine.</p>
18577
18578 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
18579 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
18580 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
18581 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
18582 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
18583 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
18584 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
18585
18586 <pre>
18587 use LWP::Simple;
18588 use POSIX;
18589 use WWW::Mechanize;
18590 use Date::Parse;
18591 [...]
18592 sub get_support_info {
18593     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
18594     my $str;
18595
18596     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
18597         # fetch website from Dell support
18598         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";
18599         my $webpage = get($url);
18600         return undef unless ($webpage);
18601
18602         my $daysleft = -1;
18603         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
18604         foreach my $line (@lines) {
18605             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
18606             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
18607             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
18608
18609             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
18610             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
18611             my $lastend = "";
18612             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
18613                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
18614
18615                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
18616                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
18617                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
18618                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
18619                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
18620                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
18621                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
18622             }
18623             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
18624             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
18625                 if ($lastend lt $today);
18626         }
18627     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
18628         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
18629         my $url =
18630             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
18631         $mech->get($url);
18632         my $fields = {
18633             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
18634             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
18635             'country' => 'NO',
18636             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
18637             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
18638         };
18639         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
18640                             fields      => $fields );
18641         # Next step is screen scraping
18642         my $content = $mech->content();
18643
18644         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
18645         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
18646         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
18647         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
18648
18649         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
18650
18651         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
18652             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
18653                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
18654             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
18655             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
18656                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
18657             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
18658                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
18659
18660             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
18661
18662             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
18663                 if ($end lt $today);
18664         }
18665     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
18666         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
18667         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
18668         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
18669             my $content =
18670                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
18671             if ($content) {
18672                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
18673                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
18674                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
18675                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
18676
18677                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
18678                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
18679
18680                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
18681
18682                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
18683                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
18684                     if ($end lt $today);
18685             }
18686         }
18687     }
18688     return $str;
18689 }
18690 </pre>
18691
18692 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
18693 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
18694 from dmidecode.</p>
18695
18696 <pre>
18697 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
18698                        "447707-B21");
18699 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
18700 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
18701                        "1234567");
18702 </pre>
18703
18704 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
18705 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
18706
18707 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
18708 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
18709 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
18710 do so.</p>
18711
18712       </div>
18713       <div class="tags">
18714
18715
18716         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>.
18717
18718
18719       </div>
18720     </div>
18721     <div class="padding"></div>
18722
18723     <div class="entry">
18724       <div class="title">
18725         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
18726       </div>
18727       <div class="date">
18728         20th February 2009
18729       </div>
18730       <div class="body">
18731         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
18732 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
18733 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
18734 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
18735 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
18736 the "missing" computer.</p>
18737
18738 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
18739 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
18740 code blocks as defined in the
18741 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
18742 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
18743 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
18744 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
18745 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
18746 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
18747 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
18748 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
18749 codes.</p>
18750
18751 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
18752 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
18753 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
18754 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
18755 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
18756 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
18757
18758 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
18759 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
18760 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
18761 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
18762 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
18763 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
18764 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
18765 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
18766 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
18767 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
18768
18769 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
18770 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
18771 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
18772
18773       </div>
18774       <div class="tags">
18775
18776
18777         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>.
18778
18779
18780       </div>
18781     </div>
18782     <div class="padding"></div>
18783
18784     <div class="entry">
18785       <div class="title">
18786         <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>
18787       </div>
18788       <div class="date">
18789         17th January 2009
18790       </div>
18791       <div class="body">
18792         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
18793 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
18794 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
18795 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
18796 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
18797 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
18798 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
18799 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
18800 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
18801 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
18802 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
18803 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
18804 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
18805 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
18806
18807 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
18808 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
18809 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
18810 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
18811 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
18812 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
18813 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
18814 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
18815 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
18816 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
18817 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
18818 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
18819 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
18820 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
18821 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
18822 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
18823 playing when the download is done.</p>
18824
18825 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
18826 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
18827 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
18828 too.</p>
18829
18830 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
18831 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
18832 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
18833 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
18834
18835       </div>
18836       <div class="tags">
18837
18838
18839         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>.
18840
18841
18842       </div>
18843     </div>
18844     <div class="padding"></div>
18845
18846     <div class="entry">
18847       <div class="title">
18848         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
18849       </div>
18850       <div class="date">
18851         28th December 2008
18852       </div>
18853       <div class="body">
18854         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
18855 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
18856 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
18857 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
18858 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
18859 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
18860 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
18861 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
18862 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
18863 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
18864 source, sink and mixer applications and
18865 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
18866 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
18867 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
18868 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
18869 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
18870 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
18871 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
18872 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
18873 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
18874
18875 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
18876 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
18877 larger stick as well.</p>
18878
18879       </div>
18880       <div class="tags">
18881
18882
18883         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>.
18884
18885
18886       </div>
18887     </div>
18888     <div class="padding"></div>
18889
18890     <div class="entry">
18891       <div class="title">
18892         <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>
18893       </div>
18894       <div class="date">
18895          7th December 2008
18896       </div>
18897       <div class="body">
18898         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
18899 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
18900 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
18901 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
18902 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
18903 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
18904 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
18905 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
18906
18907 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
18908 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
18909 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
18910 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
18911 of these cards.</p>
18912
18913       </div>
18914       <div class="tags">
18915
18916
18917         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>.
18918
18919
18920       </div>
18921     </div>
18922     <div class="padding"></div>
18923
18924     <div class="entry">
18925       <div class="title">
18926         <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>
18927       </div>
18928       <div class="date">
18929         25th November 2008
18930       </div>
18931       <div class="body">
18932         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
18933 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
18934 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
18935 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
18936 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
18937 notes are available on
18938 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
18939 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
18940 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
18941 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
18942 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
18943 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
18944 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
18945 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
18946 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
18947
18948 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
18949 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
18950
18951       </div>
18952       <div class="tags">
18953
18954
18955         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>.
18956
18957
18958       </div>
18959     </div>
18960     <div class="padding"></div>
18961
18962     <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>
18963     <div id="sidebar">
18964
18965
18966
18967 <h2>Archive</h2>
18968 <ul>
18969
18970 <li>2014
18971 <ul>
18972
18973 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
18974
18975 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
18976
18977 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (2)</a></li>
18978
18979 </ul></li>
18980
18981 <li>2013
18982 <ul>
18983
18984 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
18985
18986 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
18987
18988 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
18989
18990 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
18991
18992 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
18993
18994 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
18995
18996 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
18997
18998 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
18999
19000 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
19001
19002 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
19003
19004 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
19005
19006 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
19007
19008 </ul></li>
19009
19010 <li>2012
19011 <ul>
19012
19013 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
19014
19015 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
19016
19017 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
19018
19019 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
19020
19021 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
19022
19023 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
19024
19025 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
19026
19027 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
19028
19029 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
19030
19031 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
19032
19033 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
19034
19035 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
19036
19037 </ul></li>
19038
19039 <li>2011
19040 <ul>
19041
19042 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
19043
19044 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
19045
19046 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
19047
19048 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
19049
19050 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
19051
19052 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
19053
19054 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
19055
19056 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
19057
19058 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
19059
19060 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
19061
19062 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
19063
19064 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
19065
19066 </ul></li>
19067
19068 <li>2010
19069 <ul>
19070
19071 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
19072
19073 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
19074
19075 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
19076
19077 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
19078
19079 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
19080
19081 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
19082
19083 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
19084
19085 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
19086
19087 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
19088
19089 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
19090
19091 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
19092
19093 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
19094
19095 </ul></li>
19096
19097 <li>2009
19098 <ul>
19099
19100 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
19101
19102 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
19103
19104 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
19105
19106 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
19107
19108 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
19109
19110 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
19111
19112 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
19113
19114 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
19115
19116 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
19117
19118 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
19119
19120 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
19121
19122 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
19123
19124 </ul></li>
19125
19126 <li>2008
19127 <ul>
19128
19129 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
19130
19131 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
19132
19133 </ul></li>
19134
19135 </ul>
19136
19137
19138
19139 <h2>Tags</h2>
19140 <ul>
19141
19142  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
19143
19144  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
19145
19146  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
19147
19148  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
19149
19150  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
19151
19152  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (14)</a></li>
19153
19154  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
19155
19156  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
19157
19158  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (94)</a></li>
19159
19160  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (145)</a></li>
19161
19162  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
19163
19164  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
19165
19166  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
19167
19168  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (237)</a></li>
19169
19170  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
19171
19172  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
19173
19174  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
19175
19176  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (5)</a></li>
19177
19178  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
19179
19180  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (39)</a></li>
19181
19182  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
19183
19184  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
19185
19186  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
19187
19188  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (7)</a></li>
19189
19190  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
19191
19192  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (7)</a></li>
19193
19194  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
19195
19196  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (241)</a></li>
19197
19198  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (161)</a></li>
19199
19200  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (10)</a></li>
19201
19202  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
19203
19204  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (45)</a></li>
19205
19206  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (69)</a></li>
19207
19208  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
19209
19210  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
19211
19212  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
19213
19214  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
19215
19216  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
19217
19218  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
19219
19220  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
19221
19222  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (34)</a></li>
19223
19224  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
19225
19226  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
19227
19228  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (44)</a></li>
19229
19230  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
19231
19232  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
19233
19234  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (21)</a></li>
19235
19236  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
19237
19238  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
19239
19240  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (39)</a></li>
19241
19242  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
19243
19244  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (28)</a></li>
19245
19246 </ul>
19247
19248
19249     </div>
19250     <p style="text-align: right">
19251  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
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19253
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