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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/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>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         15th October 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
  32 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
  33 these. :)</p>
  34
  35 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
  36 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
  37 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
  38 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
  39 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
  40 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
  41 hope you will to. :)</p>
  42
  43 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
  44 create video documentaries about the excessive spying on every
  45 Internet user that take place these days, and their need to fund the
  46 work.  I've already donated.  Are you next?</p>
  47
  48 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
  49 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
  50 statement under the heading
  51 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
  52 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
  53 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
  54 too.</p>
  55
  56       </div>
  57       <div class="tags">
  58
  59
  60         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>.
  61
  62
  63       </div>
  64     </div>
  65     <div class="padding"></div>
  66
  67     <div class="entry">
  68       <div class="title">
  69         <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>
  70       </div>
  71       <div class="date">
  72         11th October 2013
  73       </div>
  74       <div class="body">
  75         <p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
  76 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
  77 areas, depending on the radio technology used.  Normal wifi equipment
  78 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
  79 successful examples like
  80 <a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
  81 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
  82 (see
  83 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
  84 for a large list</a>) around the globe.  To give you an idea how it
  85 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
  86 can be seen from their
  87 <a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
  88 updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
  89 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
  90 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
  91 and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
  92
  93 <p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
  94 to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
  95 href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
  96 my recent involvement in
  97 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
  98 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
  99 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
 100 when possible, given that most communication between people are
 101 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
 102 communication patterns).  It also allow people to communicate without
 103 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
 104 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
 105 important over the years.</p>
 106
 107 <p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
 108 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
 109 <a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania.  They seem to
 110 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
 111 <a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
 112 Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
 113 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
 114 <a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>.  Unfortunately the wiki
 115 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
 116 reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
 117 the new project.  A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
 118 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks.  I
 119 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
 120 speakers about this talk (from
 121 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
 122
 123 <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
 124
 125 <p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
 126 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
 127 figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
 128 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
 129 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
 130 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
 131 batman-adv for now.  It sure help me to  know that the very cool
 132 <a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
 133 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
 134 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
 135 less industrialized communities.  Check out this cool video presenting
 136 that project (from
 137 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
 138
 139 <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
 140
 141 <p>According to the wikipedia page on
 142 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
 143 mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
 144 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
 145 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
 146 based community mesh networks.</p>
 147
 148 <p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
 149 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
 150 network.  One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
 151 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
 152 computer.  The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
 153 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up.  A
 154 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
 155 introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project.  These are
 156 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
 157
 158 <p><table>
 159 <tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
 160 <tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
 161 <tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
 162 <td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
 163 <td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
 164 </table></p>
 165
 166 <p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
 167 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers.  (See a nice post from
 168 VillageTelco about
 169 "<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
 170 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
 171 for details.)  When these settings are activated and you have some
 172 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
 173 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
 174 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
 175
 176 <p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
 177 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
 178 firmware supporting batman-adv.  If anyone know how to use that old
 179 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
 180
 181 <p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
 182 us on IRC, either channel
 183 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
 184 or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
 185 irc.freenode.net.</p>
 186
 187 <p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
 188 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
 189 and Innovation called
 190 <a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
 191 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
 192 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
 193 Grünerløkka in Oslo.  So mesh networks are also interesting for
 194 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
 195 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
 196 know have closed down the experiment.  Perhaps Telenor or others would
 197 be interested in a cooperation?</p>
 198
 199 <p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
 200 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
 201 by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
 202 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
 203 mesh system.</p>
 204
 205       </div>
 206       <div class="tags">
 207
 208
 209         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
 210
 211
 212       </div>
 213     </div>
 214     <div class="padding"></div>
 215
 216     <div class="entry">
 217       <div class="title">
 218         <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>
 219       </div>
 220       <div class="date">
 221          8th October 2013
 222       </div>
 223       <div class="body">
 224         <p>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
 225 Salvador had published a
 226 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc">video on
 227 Youtube</a> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
 228 Skolelinux profile.  This is the profile intended for use at home or
 229 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
 230 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
 231 in other word a single user machine).  The result is 11 minutes long,
 232 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
 233 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
 234 showing the <a href="http://www.zygotebody.com/">Zygote Body 3D model
 235 of the human body</a>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
 236 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
 237 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
 238 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
 239 computers without hard drives by installing one central
 240 <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP server</a>.</p>
 241
 242 <p>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:</p>
 243
 244 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 245
 246 <p>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux?  Please let
 247 me know. :)</p>
 248
 249       </div>
 250       <div class="tags">
 251
 252
 253         Tags: <a href="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>.
 254
 255
 256       </div>
 257     </div>
 258     <div class="padding"></div>
 259
 260     <div class="entry">
 261       <div class="title">
 262         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html">Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!</a>
 263       </div>
 264       <div class="date">
 265         29th September 2013
 266       </div>
 267       <div class="body">
 268         <p>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
 269 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team.  The
 270 complete announcement text can be found at
 271 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130928">the Debian News
 272 section</a>, translated to several languages.  Please check it out.</p>
 273
 274 <p>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon.  One
 275 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
 276 partition is too small.  A workaround is to extend the partition (use
 277 lvresize + resize2fs in tty 2 while installing).</p>
 278
 279       </div>
 280       <div class="tags">
 281
 282
 283         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 284
 285
 286       </div>
 287     </div>
 288     <div class="padding"></div>
 289
 290     <div class="entry">
 291       <div class="title">
 292         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
 293       </div>
 294       <div class="date">
 295         27th September 2013
 296       </div>
 297       <div class="body">
 298         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
 299 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
 300 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
 301 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
 302
 303 <ul>
 304
 305 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
 306 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
 307
 308 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
 309 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 310
 311 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
 312 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
 313 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
 314 (Youtube)</li>
 315
 316 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
 317 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
 318
 319 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
 320 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 321
 322 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
 323 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
 324 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
 325
 326 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
 327 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
 328 (Youtube)</li>
 329
 330 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
 331 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
 332
 333 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
 334 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
 335
 336 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
 337 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
 338 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
 339
 340 </ul>
 341
 342 <p>A larger list is available from
 343 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
 344 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
 345
 346 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
 347 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
 348 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
 349 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
 350 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
 351 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
 352 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
 353 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
 354 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
 355 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
 356 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
 357
 358       </div>
 359       <div class="tags">
 360
 361
 362         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>.
 363
 364
 365       </div>
 366     </div>
 367     <div class="padding"></div>
 368
 369     <div class="entry">
 370       <div class="title">
 371         <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>
 372       </div>
 373       <div class="date">
 374         16th September 2013
 375       </div>
 376       <div class="body">
 377         <p>The third wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
 378 today.  This is the release announcement from Holger Levsen:</p>
 379
 380 <blockquote>
 381 <p>Hi,</p>
 382
 383 <p>it is my pleasure to announce the third beta release (beta 2 for
 384 short) of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
 385 Skolelinux</a> based on Debian Wheezy!</p>
 386
 387 <p>Please test these images extensivly, if no new problems are found
 388 we plan to do this final Debian Edu Wheezy release this coming
 389 weekend.  We are not aware of any major problems or blockers in beta2,
 390 if you find something, please notify us immediately!</p>
 391
 392 <p>(More about the remaining steps for the Edu Wheezy release in
 393 another mail to the edu list tonight or tomorrow...)</p>
 394
 395 <p>Noteworthy changes and software updates for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b2
 396 compared to beta1:</p>
 397
 398 <ul>
 399
 400 <li>The KDE proxy setup has been adjusted to use the provided wpad.dat. This
 401 also gets Chromium to use this proxy.</li>
 402 <li>Install kdepim-groupware with KDE desktops to make sure korganizer
 403 understand ical/dav sources.</li>
 404 <li>Increased default maximum size of /var/spool/squid and /skole/backup on the
 405 main server.</li>
 406 <li>A source DVD image containing all source packages is now available as well.</li>
 407 <li>Updates for chromium (29.0.1547.57-1~deb7u1), imagemagick
 408 (6.7.7.10-5+deb7u2), php5 (5.4.4-14+deb7u4), libmodplug
 409 (0.8.8.4-3+deb7u1+git20130828), tiff (4.0.2-6+deb7u2), linux-image
 410 (3.2.0-4-486_3.2.46-1+deb7u1).</li>
 411
 412 </ul>
 413
 414 <p>Where to get it:</p>
 415
 416 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
 417
 418 <ul>
 419 <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>
 420 <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>
 421 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso .</li>
 422 </ul>
 423
 424 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is:  3a1c89f4666df80eebcd46c5bf5fedb866f9472f</p>
 425
 426 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
 427 <ul>
 428 <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>
 429 <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>
 430 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso .</li>
 431 </ul>
 432
 433 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 702d1718548f401c74bfa6df9f032cc3ee16597e</p>
 434
 435 <p>The Source DVD image has the filename
 436 debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-source-DVD.iso and the SHA1SUM
 437 089eed8b3f962db47aae1f6a9685e9bb2fa30ca5 and is available the same way
 438 as the other isos.</p>
 439
 440 <p>How to report bugs</p>
 441
 442 <p>For information how to report bugs please see
 443 <br><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
 444
 445
 446 <p>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</p>
 447
 448 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
 449 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
 450 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
 451 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
 452 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
 453 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
 454 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
 455 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
 456 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
 457 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
 458 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
 459 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
 460 can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
 461
 462 <p>This is the seventh test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
 463 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
 464 Squeeze release.</p>
 465
 466 <p>Notes for upgrades from Alpha Prereleases</p>
 467
 468 <p>Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
 469 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
 470 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
 471 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
 472 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined on the mailing list. (2)
 473 Accept the new version of gosa.conf and replace both contained admin
 474 password placeholders with the password hashes found in the old one
 475 (backup copy!). In both cases all users need to change their password
 476 to make sure a password is set for CIFS access to their home
 477 directory.</p>
 478
 479
 480 <p>cheers,
 481 <br>        Holger</p>
 482 </blockquote>
 483
 484       </div>
 485       <div class="tags">
 486
 487
 488         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 489
 490
 491       </div>
 492     </div>
 493     <div class="padding"></div>
 494
 495     <div class="entry">
 496       <div class="title">
 497         <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>
 498       </div>
 499       <div class="date">
 500         10th September 2013
 501       </div>
 502       <div class="body">
 503         <p>I was introduced to the
 504 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
 505 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
 506 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
 507 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
 508 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
 509 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
 510 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
 511 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
 512
 513 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
 514 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
 515 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
 516 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
 517 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
 518
 519 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
 520 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
 521 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
 522 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
 523 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
 524 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
 525 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
 526 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
 527 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
 528 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
 529 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
 530 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
 531 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
 532 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
 533 missing in Debian).</p>
 534
 535 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
 536 scripts
 537 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
 538 and a administrative web interface
 539 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
 540 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
 541 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
 542 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
 543 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
 544 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
 545 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
 546 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
 547 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
 548 this is really working yet, see
 549 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
 550 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
 551 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
 552 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
 553 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
 554 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
 555 with lots of half baked features.</p>
 556
 557 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
 558 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
 559 at.</p>
 560
 561 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
 562
 563 <ol>
 564
 565 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
 566 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
 567 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
 568 to the Debian installer:<p>
 569 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
 570
 571 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
 572 install on.</li>
 573
 574 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
 575 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
 576
 577 </ol>
 578
 579 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
 580
 581 <ol>
 582
 583 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
 584 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
 585 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
 586 <pre>
 587 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
 588 </pre></li>
 589 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
 590 <pre>
 591 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
 592    apt-key add -
 593 apt-get update
 594 apt-get install freedombox-setup
 595 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
 596 </pre></li>
 597 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
 598
 599 </ol>
 600
 601 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
 602 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
 603 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
 604 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
 605 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
 606
 607 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
 608 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
 609 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
 610 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
 611
 612 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
 613 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
 614 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
 615 irc.debian.org and the
 616 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
 617 mailing list</a>.</p>
 618
 619 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
 620 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
 621 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
 622 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
 623 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
 624 default password is 'secret'.</p>
 625
 626       </div>
 627       <div class="tags">
 628
 629
 630         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>.
 631
 632
 633       </div>
 634     </div>
 635     <div class="padding"></div>
 636
 637     <div class="entry">
 638       <div class="title">
 639         <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>
 640       </div>
 641       <div class="date">
 642         22nd August 2013
 643       </div>
 644       <div class="body">
 645         <p>The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
 646 today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
 647 integration fixes .  This is the release announcement:</p>
 648
 649 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22</strong></p>
 650
 651 <p>These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 652 7.1+edu0~b1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
 653
 654 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
 655
 656 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
 657 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
 658 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
 659 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
 660 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
 661 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
 662 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
 663 the main server from CD or USB stick all other machines can be
 664 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
 665 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
 666 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
 667 desktop contains
 668 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
 669 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
 670 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
 671 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
 672
 673 <p>This is the sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
 674 is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
 675 release.</p>
 676
 677 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
 678 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
 679 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
 680 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
 681 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
 682 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/08/msg00127.html">on
 683 the mailing list</a>. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
 684 replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
 685 hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
 686 need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
 687 CIFS access to their home directory.</p>
 688
 689 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
 690
 691 <ul>
 692
 693 <li>Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
 694     work also without a attached tty.</li>
 695 <li>Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
 696     make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
 697     tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
 698     has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
 699     required).</li>
 700
 701 </ul>
 702
 703 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
 704
 705 <ul>
 706
 707 <li>Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
 708 needed for desktop=xfce installations.</li>
 709 <li>Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
 710 stick ISO image.</li>
 711 <li>Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).</li>
 712 <li>Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.</li>
 713 <li>Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
 714     during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
 715     cope with this.</li>
 716 <li>Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².</li>
 717 <li>Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
 718     empty password hashes.</li>
 719 <li>Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
 720     smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
 721     from joining the Samba domain.</li>
 722
 723 </ul>
 724
 725 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
 726
 727 <ul>
 728
 729 <li>KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
 730     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
 731 <li>Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
 732     (using the KDE configuration).</li>
 733
 734 </ul>
 735
 736 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
 737
 738 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
 739
 740 <ul>
 741
 742 <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>
 743
 744 <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>
 745
 746 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso .</li>
 747
 748 </ul>
 749
 750 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
 751 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2</p>
 752
 753 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
 754
 755 <ul>
 756
 757 <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>
 758 <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>
 759 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso .</li>
 760
 761 </ul>
 762
 763 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
 764 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119</p>
 765
 766
 767 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
 768
 769 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
 770
 771       </div>
 772       <div class="tags">
 773
 774
 775         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 776
 777
 778       </div>
 779     </div>
 780     <div class="padding"></div>
 781
 782     <div class="entry">
 783       <div class="title">
 784         <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>
 785       </div>
 786       <div class="date">
 787         18th August 2013
 788       </div>
 789       <div class="body">
 790         <p>Earlier, I reported about
 791 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
 792 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
 793 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
 794 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
 795 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
 796 currently on the disk.</p>
 797
 798 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
 799 <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>
 800 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
 801 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
 802 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
 803 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
 804 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
 805 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
 806 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
 807 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
 808 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
 809 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
 810 the broken disks.</p>
 811
 812       </div>
 813       <div class="tags">
 814
 815
 816         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>.
 817
 818
 819       </div>
 820     </div>
 821     <div class="padding"></div>
 822
 823     <div class="entry">
 824       <div class="title">
 825         <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>
 826       </div>
 827       <div class="date">
 828          2nd August 2013
 829       </div>
 830       <div class="body">
 831         <p>It has been a while since my last update.  Since last summer, I
 832 have worked on a Norwegian
 833 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
 834 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
 835 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright
 836 law.  Yesterday, I finally broken the 90% mark, when counting the
 837 number of strings to translate.  Due to real life constraints, I have
 838 not had time to work on it since March, but when the summer broke out,
 839 I found time to work on it again.  Still lots of work left, but the
 840 first draft is nearing completion.  I created a graph to show the
 841 progress of the translation:</p>
 842
 843 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
 844
 845 <p>When the first draft is done, the translated text need to be
 846 proof read, and the remaining formatting problems with images and SVG
 847 drawings need to be fixed.  There are probably also some index entries
 848 missing that need to be added.  This can be done by comparing the
 849 index entries listed in the SiSU version of the book, or comparing the
 850 English docbook version with the paper version.  Last, the colophon
 851 page with ISBN numbers etc need to be wrapped up before the release is
 852 done.  I should also figure out how to get correct Norwegian sorting
 853 of the index pages.  All docbook tools I have tried so far (xmlto,
 854 docbook-xsl, dblatex) get the order of symbols and the special
 855 Norwegian letters ÆØÅ wrong.</p>
 856
 857 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
 858 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
 859 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
 860 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
 861 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
 862 around?  There are also some legal terms that are unfamiliar to me.
 863 If you want to help, please get in touch with me, and check out the
 864 project files currently available from
 865 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
 866
 867 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
 868 the updated
 869 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
 870 and
 871 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
 872 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
 873 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
 874 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
 875
 876       </div>
 877       <div class="tags">
 878
 879
 880         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>.
 881
 882
 883       </div>
 884     </div>
 885     <div class="padding"></div>
 886
 887     <div class="entry">
 888       <div class="title">
 889         <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>
 890       </div>
 891       <div class="date">
 892         27th July 2013
 893       </div>
 894       <div class="body">
 895         <p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
 896 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
 897
 898 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released
 899 2013-07-27</strong></p>
 900
 901 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 902 7.1+edu0~b0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
 903
 904 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
 905
 906 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
 907 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
 908 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
 909 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
 910 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
 911 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
 912 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
 913 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
 914 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
 915 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
 916 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
 917 desktop contains
 918 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
 919 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
 920 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
 921 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
 922
 923 <p>This is the fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
 924 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
 925 Squeeze release.</p>
 926
 927 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
 928 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
 929 release.</p>
 930
 931 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
 932
 933 <ul>
 934
 935 <li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager
 936    for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li>
 937 <li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser
 938    packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced
 939    by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those
 940    installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa
 941    and libpam-mklocaluser.</li>
 942 <li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li>
 943 <li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li>
 944 <li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of
 945    crash bugs.</li>
 946
 947 </ul>
 948
 949 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
 950
 951 <ul>
 952
 953 <li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break
 954    desktop=gnome installations.</li>
 955 <li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the
 956    netinst CD.</li>
 957 <li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific
 958    setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li>
 959 <li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at
 960    install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash
 961    with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li>
 962 <li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient
 963    exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host
 964    name setting at run time to work again.</li>
 965 <li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL
 966    fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by
 967    updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li>
 968 <li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique
 969    (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li>
 970 <li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li>
 971
 972 </ul>
 973
 974 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
 975
 976 <ul>
 977
 978 <li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li>
 979 <li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
 980     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
 981 <li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</li>
 982
 983 </ul>
 984
 985 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
 986
 987 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
 988
 989 <ul>
 990
 991 <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>
 992
 993 <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>
 994
 995 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li>
 996
 997 </ul>
 998
 999 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109
1000 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</p>
1001
1002 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
1003
1004 <ul>
1005
1006 <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>
1007 <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>
1008 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li>
1009
1010 </ul>
1011
1012 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69
1013 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</p>
1014
1015
1016 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
1017
1018 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
1019
1020       </div>
1021       <div class="tags">
1022
1023
1024         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1025
1026
1027       </div>
1028     </div>
1029     <div class="padding"></div>
1030
1031     <div class="entry">
1032       <div class="title">
1033         <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>
1034       </div>
1035       <div class="date">
1036         17th July 2013
1037       </div>
1038       <div class="body">
1039         <p>Today I switched to
1040 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
1041 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
1042 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
1043 <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
1044 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
1045 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
1046 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
1047 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
1048 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
1049 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
1050 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
1051 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
1052 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
1053 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
1054 station from now on.</p>
1055
1056 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
1057 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
1058 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
1059 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
1060 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
1061 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
1062 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
1063 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
1064 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
1065 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
1066 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
1067 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
1068
1069 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
1070 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
1071 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
1072 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
1073 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
1074 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
1075 parameters are tuned:</p>
1076
1077 <ul>
1078
1079 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
1080     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
1081
1082 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
1083     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
1084     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
1085
1086 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
1087     systems.</li>
1088
1089 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
1090     /etc/fstab.</li>
1091
1092 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
1093
1094 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
1095     cron.daily).</li>
1096
1097 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
1098     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
1099
1100 </ul>
1101
1102 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
1103 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
1104 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
1105 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
1106 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
1107 from getting the data on the disk (see
1108 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
1109 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
1110 right thing to do.</p>
1111
1112 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
1113 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
1114 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
1115
1116 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
1117 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
1118 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
1119 instead of during my work.</p>
1120
1121 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
1122 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
1123
1124 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
1125 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
1126 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
1127
1128 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
1129 there.</p>
1130
1131 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
1132 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
1133 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
1134 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
1135 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
1136 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
1137 back.</p>
1138
1139       </div>
1140       <div class="tags">
1141
1142
1143         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>.
1144
1145
1146       </div>
1147     </div>
1148     <div class="padding"></div>
1149
1150     <div class="entry">
1151       <div class="title">
1152         <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>
1153       </div>
1154       <div class="date">
1155         10th July 2013
1156       </div>
1157       <div class="body">
1158         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
1159 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
1160 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
1161 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
1162 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
1163 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
1164 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
1165 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
1166
1167 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
1168 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
1169 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
1170 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
1171 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
1172 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
1173 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
1174 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
1175 lock up when I download a new
1176 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
1177 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
1178 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
1179
1180 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
1181 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
1182 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
1183 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
1184 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
1185 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
1186
1187 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
1188 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
1189 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
1190 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
1191 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
1192 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
1193
1194 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
1195 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
1196 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
1197 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
1198 exist).</p>
1199
1200       </div>
1201       <div class="tags">
1202
1203
1204         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>.
1205
1206
1207       </div>
1208     </div>
1209     <div class="padding"></div>
1210
1211     <div class="entry">
1212       <div class="title">
1213         <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>
1214       </div>
1215       <div class="date">
1216          9th July 2013
1217       </div>
1218       <div class="body">
1219         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
1220 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
1221 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
1222 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
1223 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1224 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
1225 Bitraf</a>.</p>
1226
1227 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
1228 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
1229 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
1230 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
1231 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
1232
1233       </div>
1234       <div class="tags">
1235
1236
1237         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>.
1238
1239
1240       </div>
1241     </div>
1242     <div class="padding"></div>
1243
1244     <div class="entry">
1245       <div class="title">
1246         <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>
1247       </div>
1248       <div class="date">
1249          5th July 2013
1250       </div>
1251       <div class="body">
1252         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
1253 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
1254 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
1255 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
1256 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
1257 ended up picking a
1258 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
1259 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
1260 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
1261 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
1262 on that below.</p>
1263
1264 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
1265 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
1266 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
1267 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
1268 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
1269 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
1270 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
1271 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
1272 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
1273
1274 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
1275 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
1276 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
1277 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
1278 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
1279 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
1280 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
1281
1282 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
1283 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
1284
1285 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
1286 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
1287 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
1288 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
1289 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
1290 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
1291 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
1292 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
1293 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
1294 kernel developers as
1295 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
1296 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
1297 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
1298 Lenovo forums, both for
1299 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
1300 2012-11-10</a> and for
1301 <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
1302 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
1303 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
1304 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
1305 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
1306 There is even a
1307 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
1308 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
1309 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
1310
1311 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
1312 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
1313 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
1314 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
1315 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
1316 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
1317 fixed. :)</p>
1318
1319       </div>
1320       <div class="tags">
1321
1322
1323         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>.
1324
1325
1326       </div>
1327     </div>
1328     <div class="padding"></div>
1329
1330     <div class="entry">
1331       <div class="title">
1332         <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>
1333       </div>
1334       <div class="date">
1335          4th July 2013
1336       </div>
1337       <div class="body">
1338         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
1339 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
1340 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
1341 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
1342 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
1343 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
1344 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
1345 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
1346 with an expencive door stop.</p>
1347
1348 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
1349 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
1350 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
1351 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
1352 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
1353 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
1354 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
1355
1356 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
1357 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
1358 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
1359 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
1360 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
1361 new laptop now. :)</p>
1362
1363 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
1364
1365       </div>
1366       <div class="tags">
1367
1368
1369         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>.
1370
1371
1372       </div>
1373     </div>
1374     <div class="padding"></div>
1375
1376     <div class="entry">
1377       <div class="title">
1378         <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>
1379       </div>
1380       <div class="date">
1381          3rd July 2013
1382       </div>
1383       <div class="body">
1384         <p>The fourth wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
1385 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
1386
1387 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~alpha3 released
1388 2013-07-03</strong></p>
1389
1390 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1391 7.1+edu0~alpha3, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
1392
1393 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
1394
1395 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
1396 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
1397 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
1398 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
1399 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
1400 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
1401 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
1402 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
1403 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
1404 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
1405 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
1406 desktop contains
1407 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
1408 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
1409 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
1410 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
1411
1412 <p>This is the fourth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
1413 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
1414 Squeeze release.</p>
1415
1416 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
1417 <ul>
1418   <li>Dropped ispell dictionaries from our default installation.</li>
1419   <li>Dropped menu-xdg from the KDE desktop option, to drop the Debian
1420     submenu.  It was not included with Gnome, LXDE or Xfce, so this
1421     brings KDE in line with the others.</li>
1422   <li>Dropped xdrawchem, xjig and xsok from our default installation as
1423     they don't have a desktop menu entry and thus won't show up in the
1424     menu now that menu-xdg was removed.</li>
1425   <li>Removed the killer system to kill left behind processes on
1426     multi-user machines, as it was no longer able to understand when a
1427     X display was in use and killed the processes of the active users
1428     too.</li>
1429   <li>Dropped the golearn (from goplay) package as the debtags in wheezy
1430     are too few to make the package useful.</li>
1431 </ul>
1432 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
1433 <ul>
1434   <li>Updated artwork matching http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Joy
1435   <li>Multi-arch i386/amd64 USB stick ISO available.</li>
1436   <li>Got rid of ispell/wordlist related debconf questions that showed
1437     up for some language options.</li>
1438   <li>Switched to using http.debian.net as APT source by default.</li>
1439   <li>Fixed proxy configuration on Main Server installations.</li>
1440   <li>Changed LTSP setup to ask dpkg to use force-unsafe-io the same way
1441     d-i is doing it.</li>
1442   <li>Made sure root and user passwords were not left behind in the
1443     debconf database after installation on Main Server installations.</li>
1444   <li>Made Roaming Workstation dynamic setup more robust and added draft
1445     script setup-ad-client to hook a Roaming Workstation up to a
1446     Active Directory server instead of a Debian Edu Main Server.</li>
1447   <li>Update system to install needed firmware packages during
1448     installation, to work properly in Wheezy.</li>
1449   <li>Update system to handle hardware quirks (debian-edu-hwsetup).</li>
1450   <li>Corrected PXE installation setup to properly pass selected desktop
1451     and keymap settings to PXE installation clients.</li>
1452   <li>LTSP diskless workstations use sshfs by default, allowing them to
1453     work without adding them to DNS and NIS netgroups for NFS access.</li>
1454 </ul>
1455 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
1456 <ul>
1457   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
1458     available yet (698840).</li>
1459   <li>Artwork not enabled for all desktops.</li>
1460 </ul>
1461 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
1462
1463 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
1464 <ul>
1465   <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>
1466   <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>
1467   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso .</li>
1468 </ul>
1469
1470 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 2b161a99d2a848c376d8d04e3854e30c
1471 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 498922e9c508c0a7ee9dbe1dfe5bf830d779c3c8</p>
1472
1473 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
1474 <ul>
1475   <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>
1476   <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>
1477   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso .</li>
1478 </ul>
1479
1480 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 25e808e403a4c15dbef1d13c37d572ac
1481 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 15ecfc93eb6b4f453b7eb0bc04b6a279262d9721</p>
1482
1483 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
1484
1485 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
1486
1487       </div>
1488       <div class="tags">
1489
1490
1491         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1492
1493
1494       </div>
1495     </div>
1496     <div class="padding"></div>
1497
1498     <div class="entry">
1499       <div class="title">
1500         <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>
1501       </div>
1502       <div class="date">
1503         25th June 2013
1504       </div>
1505       <div class="body">
1506         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
1507 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
1508 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
1509 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
1510 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
1511 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
1512 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
1513 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
1514 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
1515 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
1516 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
1517
1518 <p><pre>
1519 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
1520 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
1521 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
1522 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
1523 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
1524 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
1525 firmware-ipw2x00
1526 firmware-ipw2x00
1527 Preconfiguring packages ...
1528 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
1529 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
1530 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
1531 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
1532 #
1533 </pre></p>
1534
1535 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
1536 printed instead:</p>
1537
1538 <p><pre>
1539 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
1540 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
1541 #
1542 </pre></p>
1543
1544 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
1545 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
1546
1547 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
1548 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
1549 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
1550 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
1551 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
1552 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
1553 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
1554 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
1555 machine.</p>
1556
1557 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
1558 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
1559 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
1560 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
1561 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
1562 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
1563
1564       </div>
1565       <div class="tags">
1566
1567
1568         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>.
1569
1570
1571       </div>
1572     </div>
1573     <div class="padding"></div>
1574
1575     <div class="entry">
1576       <div class="title">
1577         <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>
1578       </div>
1579       <div class="date">
1580         22nd June 2013
1581       </div>
1582       <div class="body">
1583         <p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
1584 Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
1585 which check that services are running, working, and return the
1586 expected results.  It runs automatically just after the first boot on
1587 test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
1588 installations (using non-test ISOs).  It test that the LDAP service is
1589 operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
1590 online resizable, etc, etc.  And it check that the PXE service is
1591 configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
1592
1593 <p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
1594 Edu Wheezy release.  These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
1595 complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
1596 happen all the needed packages need to be on them.  Thanks to our test
1597 suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
1598 cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
1599 When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
1600 using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
1601 working packages to get it working.  And the packages changed name
1602 from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
1603 debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
1604 packages during installation.  Without our test suite, I suspect we
1605 would never have discovered this before release.  Now it is fixed
1606 right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
1607
1608 <p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
1609 administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
1610 test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
1611 any errors are detected.  This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
1612 the problem.</p>
1613
1614 <p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
1615 please join us on
1616 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
1617 irc.debian.org</a> and the
1618 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
1619 list.</p>
1620
1621       </div>
1622       <div class="tags">
1623
1624
1625         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1626
1627
1628       </div>
1629     </div>
1630     <div class="padding"></div>
1631
1632     <div class="entry">
1633       <div class="title">
1634         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html">Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</a>
1635       </div>
1636       <div class="date">
1637         17th June 2013
1638       </div>
1639       <div class="body">
1640         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
1641 Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
1642 globe.  And a while back, an enterprising young man showed up on
1643 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">our IRC channel
1644 #debian-edu</a> and started asking questions about how Debian Edu
1645 worked.  We answered as good as we could, and even convinced him to
1646 help us with translations.  And today I managed to get an interview
1647 with him, to learn more about him.</p>
1648
1649 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1650
1651 <p>I'm a 25 year old free software enthusiast, living in Romania,
1652 which is also my country of origin. Back in 2009, at a New Year's Eve
1653 party, I had a very nice <strike>beer</strike> discussion with a
1654 friend, when we realized we have no organised Debian community in our
1655 country. A few days later, we put together the infrastructure for such
1656 community and even gathered a nice Debian-ish crowd. Since then, I
1657 began my quest as a free software hacker and activist and I am
1658 constantly trying to cover as much ground as possible on that
1659 field.</p>
1660
1661 <p>A few years ago I founded a small web development company, which
1662 provided me the flexible schedule I needed so much for my
1663 activities. For the last 13 months, I have been the Technical Director
1664 of <a href="http://ceata.org/">Fundația Ceata</a>, which is a free
1665 software activist organisation endorsed by the FSF and the FSFE, and
1666 the only one we have in our country.</p>
1667
1668 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
1669 project?</strong></p>
1670
1671 <p>The idea of participating in the Debian Edu project was a surprise
1672 even to me, since I never used it before I began getting involved in
1673 it. This year I had a great opportunity to deliver a talk on
1674 educational software, and I knew immediately where to look. It was a
1675 love at first sight, since I was previously involved with some of the
1676 technologies the project incorporates, and I rapidly found a lot of
1677 ways to contribute.</p>
1678
1679 <p>My first contributions consisted in translating the installer and
1680 configuration dialogs, then I found some bugs to squash (I still
1681 haven't fixed them yet though), and I even got my eyes on some other
1682 areas where I can prove myself helpful. Since the appetite for free
1683 software in my country is pretty low, I'll be happy to be the first
1684 one around here advocating for the project's adoption in educational
1685 environments, and maybe even get my hands dirty in creating a flavour
1686 for our own needs. I am not used to make very advanced plannings, so
1687 from now on, time will tell what I'll be doing next, but I think I
1688 have a pretty consistent starting point.</p>
1689
1690 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1691 Edu?</strong></p>
1692
1693 <p>Not a long time ago, I was in the position of configuring and
1694 maintaining a LDAP server on some Debian derivative, and I must say it
1695 took me a while. A long time ago, I was maintaining a bigger
1696 Samba-powered infrastructure, and I must say I spent quite a lot of
1697 time on it. I have similar stories about many of the services included
1698 with Skolelinux, and the main advantage I see about it is the
1699 out-of-the box availability of them, making it quite competitive when
1700 it comes to managing a school's network, for example.</p>
1701
1702 <p>Of course, there is more to say about Skolelinux than the
1703 availability of the software included, its flexibility in various
1704 scenarios is something I can't wait to experiment "into the wild" (I
1705 only played with virtual machines so far). And I am sure there is a
1706 lot more I haven't discovered yet about it, being so new within the
1707 project.</p>
1708
1709 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1710 Edu?</strong></p>
1711
1712 <p>As usual, when it comes to Debian Blends, I see as the biggest
1713 disadvantage the lack of a numerous team dedicated to the
1714 project. Every day I see the same names in the changelogs, and I have
1715 a constantly fear of the bus factor in this story.  I'd like to see
1716 Debian Edu advertised more as an entry point into the Debian
1717 ecosystem, especially amongst newcomers and students. IMHO there are a
1718 lot low-hanging fruits in terms of bug squashing, and enough
1719 opportunities to get the feeling of the Debian Project's dynamics. Not
1720 to mention it's a very fun blend to work on!</p>
1721
1722 <p>Derived from the previous statement, is the delay in catching up
1723 with the main Debian release and documentation. This is common though
1724 to all blends and derivatives, but it's an issue we can all work
1725 on.</p>
1726
1727 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1728
1729 <p>I can hardly imagine myself spending a day without Vim, since my
1730 daily routine covers writing code and hacking configuration files. I
1731 am a fan of the Awesome window manager (but I also like the
1732 Enlightenment project a lot!),
1733 <a href="http://www.claws-mail.org/‎">Claws Mail</a> due to its ease of
1734 use and very configurable behaviour. Recently I fell in love with
1735 <a href="https://launchpad.net/redshift">Redshift</a>, which helps me
1736 get through the night without headaches. Of course, there is much more
1737 stuff in this bag, but I'll need a blog on my own for doing this!</p>
1738
1739 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1740 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1741
1742 <p>Well, on this field, I cannot do much more than experiment right
1743 now. So, being far from having a recipe for success, I can only assume
1744 that:</p>
1745
1746 <ul>
1747
1748 <li>schools would like to get rid of proprietary software</li>
1749
1750 <li>students will love the openness of the system, and will want to
1751     experiment with it - maybe we need to harvest the native curiosity
1752     of teenagers more?</li>
1753
1754 <li>there is no "right one" when it comes to strategies, but it would
1755     be useful to have some success stories published somewhere, so
1756     other can get some inspiration from them (I know I'd promote
1757     them!)</li>
1758
1759 <li>more active promotion - talks, conferences, even small school
1760     lectures can do magical things if they encounter at least one
1761     person interested. Who knows who that person might be? ;-)</li>
1762
1763 </ul>
1764
1765 <p>I also see some problems in getting Skolelinux into schools; for
1766 example, in our country we have a great deal of corruption issues, so
1767 it might be hard(er) to fight against proprietary solutions. Also,
1768 people who relied on commercial software for all their lives, would be
1769 very hard to convert against their will.</p>
1770
1771       </div>
1772       <div class="tags">
1773
1774
1775         Tags: <a href="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>.
1776
1777
1778       </div>
1779     </div>
1780     <div class="padding"></div>
1781
1782     <div class="entry">
1783       <div class="title">
1784         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a>
1785       </div>
1786       <div class="date">
1787         12th June 2013
1788       </div>
1789       <div class="body">
1790         <p>There is a certain cross-over between the
1791 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1792 project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
1793 project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
1794 effort between the projects.  One person with a foot in both camps is
1795 Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
1796
1797 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1798
1799 <p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
1800 days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
1801 getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
1802
1803 <p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
1804 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
1805 each other.</p>
1806
1807 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
1808 project?</strong></p>
1809
1810 <p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
1811 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
1812 [Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
1813 London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
1814 Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
1815 it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
1816 was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
1817 day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
1818 over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
1819 been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
1820 still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
1821 we'll get there one day.</p>
1822
1823 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1824 Edu?</strong></p>
1825
1826 <p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
1827 it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
1828 that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
1829 very high quality work.</p>
1830
1831 <p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
1832 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
1833 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
1834 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
1835 community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
1836
1837 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1838 Edu?</strong></p>
1839
1840 <p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
1841 separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
1842 what I originally rambled on about)</p>
1843
1844 <p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
1845 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
1846 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
1847 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
1848 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
1849 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
1850 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
1851 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
1852 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
1853 currently.</p>
1854
1855 <p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
1856 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
1857 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
1858 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
1859 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
1860 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
1861 autonomous.</p>
1862
1863 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1864
1865 <p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
1866 Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
1867 some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
1868 particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
1869 so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
1870
1871 <p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
1872 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
1873 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
1874 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
1875 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
1876 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
1877 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
1878 X.</p>
1879
1880 <p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
1881 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
1882 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
1883 it :p)
1884
1885 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1886 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1887
1888 <p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
1889 many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
1890 don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
1891 that.</p>
1892
1893 <p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
1894 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
1895 advantage of that.</p>
1896
1897 <p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
1898 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
1899 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
1900 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
1901 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
1902 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
1903 best solution for them.</p>
1904
1905 <p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
1906 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
1907 make a decision that would work for them.</p>
1908
1909       </div>
1910       <div class="tags">
1911
1912
1913         Tags: <a href="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>.
1914
1915
1916       </div>
1917     </div>
1918     <div class="padding"></div>
1919
1920     <div class="entry">
1921       <div class="title">
1922         <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>
1923       </div>
1924       <div class="date">
1925         11th June 2013
1926       </div>
1927       <div class="body">
1928         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
1929 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
1930 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
1931 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
1932 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
1933 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
1934 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
1935 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
1936 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
1937 i915 driver used by the
1938 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
1939 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
1940
1941 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
1942 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
1943 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
1944 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
1945 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
1946
1947 <pre>
1948 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
1949 update-initramfs -u -k all
1950 </pre>
1951
1952 <p>Since March 2012 there is
1953 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
1954 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
1955 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
1956 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
1957 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
1958 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
1959 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
1960 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
1961 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
1962 number.</p>
1963
1964 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
1965 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
1966
1967 <p><pre>
1968 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
1969     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
1970     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
1971  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
1972  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
1973     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
1974  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
1975     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
1976  Latency: 0
1977  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
1978  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
1979  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
1980  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
1981  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
1982  Capabilities: <access denied>
1983  Kernel driver in use: i915
1984 </pre></p>
1985
1986 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
1987
1988 <p><pre>
1989 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
1990        ...
1991         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
1992         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
1993        ...
1994 }
1995 </pre></p>
1996
1997 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
1998 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
1999 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
2000 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
2001 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
2002 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
2003 yet shown up in
2004 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
2005 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
2006 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
2007 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
2008 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
2009 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
2010
2011 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
2012 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
2013 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
2014 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
2015 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
2016 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
2017 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
2018 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
2019 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
2020 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
2021 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
2022 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
2023
2024 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
2025 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
2026 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
2027 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
2028 backlight.</p>
2029
2030       </div>
2031       <div class="tags">
2032
2033
2034         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>.
2035
2036
2037       </div>
2038     </div>
2039     <div class="padding"></div>
2040
2041     <div class="entry">
2042       <div class="title">
2043         <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>
2044       </div>
2045       <div class="date">
2046         10th June 2013
2047       </div>
2048       <div class="body">
2049         <p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
2050 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
2051
2052 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
2053 2013-06-10</strong></p>
2054
2055 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
2056 alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
2057
2058 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2059
2060 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
2061 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
2062 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
2063 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
2064 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
2065 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
2066 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
2067 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
2068 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
2069 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
2070 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
2071 desktop contains
2072 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
2073 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
2074 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
2075 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
2076
2077 <p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
2078 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
2079 Squeeze release.</p>
2080
2081 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2082
2083 <ul>
2084
2085 <li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
2086 <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).
2087 <li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
2088 <li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
2089 <li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
2090
2091 </ul>
2092
2093 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
2094
2095 <ul>
2096
2097 <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.
2098 <li>Updated translation of the installation.
2099 <li>New Romanian translation.
2100 <li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
2101 <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).
2102 <li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
2103 <li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
2104 <li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
2105 <li>More testsuite tests.
2106 <li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
2107 <li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
2108
2109 <li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
2110 LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
2111
2112 <li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
2113 them up with GOsa².</li>
2114
2115 <li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
2116
2117 <li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
2118 slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
2119 entered password). </li>
2120
2121 </ul>
2122
2123 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
2124
2125 <ul>
2126
2127 <li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
2128
2129 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
2130 available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
2131 missing import feature).</li>
2132
2133 <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
2134
2135 <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
2136 own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
2137 unfixed.</li>
2138
2139 </ul>
2140
2141 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
2142
2143 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2144
2145 <ul>
2146
2147 <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>
2148
2149 <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>
2150
2151 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
2152
2153 </ul>
2154
2155 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
2156 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
2157
2158 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
2159
2160 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
2161
2162       </div>
2163       <div class="tags">
2164
2165
2166         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2167
2168
2169       </div>
2170     </div>
2171     <div class="padding"></div>
2172
2173     <div class="entry">
2174       <div class="title">
2175         <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>
2176       </div>
2177       <div class="date">
2178          5th June 2013
2179       </div>
2180       <div class="body">
2181         <p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
2182 We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
2183 hope to get released soon.  The two problems require some with PHP
2184 skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
2185 the project:
2186
2187 <ol>
2188
2189 <li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
2190   (slbackup-php) using the root user and password.  This is
2191   <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
2192   This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
2193   Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
2194
2195 <li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
2196   using ldif nor using CSV files.  The feature was disabled after a
2197   major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
2198   This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
2199   #698840</a>.</li>
2200
2201 </ol>
2202
2203 <p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
2204 (<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
2205 irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
2206
2207       </div>
2208       <div class="tags">
2209
2210
2211         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2212
2213
2214       </div>
2215     </div>
2216     <div class="padding"></div>
2217
2218     <div class="entry">
2219       <div class="title">
2220         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a>
2221       </div>
2222       <div class="date">
2223          4th June 2013
2224       </div>
2225       <div class="body">
2226         <p>It has been a while since my last English
2227 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
2228 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
2229 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
2230 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
2231 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
2232
2233 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2234
2235 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
2236 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
2237 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
2238 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
2239
2240 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
2241 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
2242 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
2243
2244 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
2245 project?</strong></p>
2246
2247 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
2248 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
2249 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
2250 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
2251 manual.
2252
2253 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
2254 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
2255 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
2256 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
2257
2258 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
2259 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
2260 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
2261 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
2262 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
2263 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
2264 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
2265 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
2266 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
2267 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
2268
2269 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
2270 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
2271 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
2272 beautiful project.</p>
2273
2274 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2275 Edu?</strong></p>
2276
2277 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
2278 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
2279 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
2280
2281 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
2282 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
2283 of educational free software.</p>
2284
2285 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2286 Edu?</strong></p>
2287
2288 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
2289 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
2290 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
2291 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
2292 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
2293
2294 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
2295 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
2296 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
2297 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
2298 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
2299 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
2300 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
2301 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
2302
2303 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2304
2305 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
2306 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
2307 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
2308 also using the mathematical software
2309 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
2310 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
2311 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
2312
2313 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
2314 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
2315 statistics?</strong></p>
2316
2317 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
2318 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
2319 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
2320 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
2321
2322 <ul>
2323
2324 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
2325 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
2326 constructions in planar geometry
2327
2328 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
2329 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
2330 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
2331
2332 </ul>
2333
2334 <p>I like also
2335 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
2336 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
2337 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
2338
2339 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2340 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2341
2342 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
2343
2344 <ul>
2345
2346 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
2347
2348 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
2349     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
2350     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
2351
2352 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
2353
2354 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
2355     system.</li>
2356
2357 </ul>
2358
2359       </div>
2360       <div class="tags">
2361
2362
2363         Tags: <a href="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>.
2364
2365
2366       </div>
2367     </div>
2368     <div class="padding"></div>
2369
2370     <div class="entry">
2371       <div class="title">
2372         <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>
2373       </div>
2374       <div class="date">
2375          1st June 2013
2376       </div>
2377       <div class="body">
2378         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2379 Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
2380 Created to help teachers teach, and pupils learn.  We have tried to
2381 tag them all using debtags use::learning and role::program, and using
2382 the debtags I was happy to be able to create a collage of the
2383 educational software packages installed by default, sorted by the
2384 debtag field.  Here it is.  Click on a image to learn more about the
2385 program.</p>
2386
2387 <!-- 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 -->
2388
2389 <p><strong>field::arts</strong></p>
2390 <p>
2391 <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>
2392 <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>
2393 <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>
2394 <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>
2395 <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>
2396 <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>
2397 <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>
2398 <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>
2399 <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>
2400 <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>
2401 <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>
2402 <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>
2403 <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>
2404 <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>
2405 </p>
2406
2407 <p><strong>field::astronomy</strong></p>
2408 <p>
2409 <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>
2410 <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>
2411 <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>
2412 <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>
2413 <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>
2414 <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>
2415 </p>
2416
2417 <p><strong>field::biology:structural</strong></p>
2418 <p>
2419 <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>
2420 </p>
2421
2422 <p><strong>field::chemistry</strong></p>
2423 <p>
2424 <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>
2425 <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>
2426 <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>
2427 <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>
2428 <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>
2429 <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>
2430 <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>
2431 <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>
2432 <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>
2433 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=viewmol'>[viewmol]</a>
2434 <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>
2435 </p>
2436
2437 <p><strong>field::electronics</strong></p>
2438 <p>
2439 <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>
2440 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpsim'>[gpsim]</a>
2441 </p>
2442
2443 <p><strong>field::geography</strong></p>
2444 <p>
2445 <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>
2446 <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>
2447 <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>
2448 </p>
2449
2450 <p><strong>field::linguistics</strong></p>
2451 <p>
2452 <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>
2453 <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>
2454 <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>
2455 <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>
2456 <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>
2457 </p>
2458
2459 <p><strong>field::mathematics</strong></p>
2460 <p>
2461 <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>
2462 <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>
2463 <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>
2464 <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>
2465 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geomview'>[geomview]</a>
2466 <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>
2467 <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>
2468 <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>
2469 <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>
2470 <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>
2471 <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>
2472 <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>
2473 <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>
2474 <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>
2475 <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>
2476 <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>
2477 <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>
2478 </p>
2479
2480 <p><strong>field::physics</strong></p>
2481 <p>
2482 <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>
2483 <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>
2484 </p>
2485
2486 <p><strong>field::TODO</strong></p>
2487 <p>
2488 <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>
2489 <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>
2490 <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>
2491 <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>
2492 <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>
2493 <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>
2494 <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>
2495 <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>
2496 <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>
2497 <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>
2498 </p>
2499
2500 <p>In total, 61 applications.  3 of them lacked screen shots on
2501 <a href="http://screenshot.debian.net">screenshot.debian.net</a>.  If
2502 you know of some packages we should install by default, please let us
2503 know on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu
2504 on irc.debian.org</a>, or our
2505 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">mailing list
2506 debian-edu@</a>.</p>
2507
2508       </div>
2509       <div class="tags">
2510
2511
2512         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2513
2514
2515       </div>
2516     </div>
2517     <div class="padding"></div>
2518
2519     <div class="entry">
2520       <div class="title">
2521         <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>
2522       </div>
2523       <div class="date">
2524         27th May 2013
2525       </div>
2526       <div class="body">
2527         <p>Two days ago, I asked
2528 <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
2529 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
2530 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
2531 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
2532 and Windows 8.</p>
2533
2534 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
2535 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
2536 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
2537 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
2538 enough to tell.</p>
2539
2540 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
2541 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
2542 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
2543 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
2544 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
2545 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
2546 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
2547 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
2548 to follow.</p>
2549
2550 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
2551 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
2552 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
2553 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
2554 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
2555 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
2556 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
2557 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
2558
2559 <p>I've updated the
2560 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
2561 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
2562 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
2563 machine.</p>
2564
2565 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
2566 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
2567
2568       </div>
2569       <div class="tags">
2570
2571
2572         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>.
2573
2574
2575       </div>
2576     </div>
2577     <div class="padding"></div>
2578
2579     <div class="entry">
2580       <div class="title">
2581         <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>
2582       </div>
2583       <div class="date">
2584         25th May 2013
2585       </div>
2586       <div class="body">
2587         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
2588 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
2589 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
2590 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
2591 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
2592 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
2593
2594 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
2595 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
2596 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
2597 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
2598 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
2599 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
2600 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
2601 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
2602 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
2603 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
2604
2605 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
2606 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
2607 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
2608 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
2609 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
2610 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
2611
2612 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
2613 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
2614 on new Laptops?</p>
2615
2616       </div>
2617       <div class="tags">
2618
2619
2620         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>.
2621
2622
2623       </div>
2624     </div>
2625     <div class="padding"></div>
2626
2627     <div class="entry">
2628       <div class="title">
2629         <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>
2630       </div>
2631       <div class="date">
2632         17th May 2013
2633       </div>
2634       <div class="body">
2635         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
2636 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
2637 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
2638 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
2639 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
2640 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
2641 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
2642 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
2643 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
2644 donate some money</a>.
2645
2646 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
2647 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
2648 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
2649 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
2650 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
2651
2652 <p>The script,
2653 <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/>
2654 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
2655 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
2656 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
2657
2658 <ol>
2659
2660 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
2661 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
2662 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
2663     our configuration.</li>
2664 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
2665     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
2666     according to the profile specified in the config above,
2667     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
2668 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
2669     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
2670 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
2671
2672 </ol>
2673
2674 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
2675 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
2676 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
2677 the needed packages.</p>
2678
2679 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
2680 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
2681 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
2682 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
2683 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
2684 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
2685
2686 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
2687 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
2688 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
2689
2690 <p><pre>
2691 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
2692 DESKTOP="lxde"
2693 </pre></p>
2694
2695 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
2696 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
2697 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
2698 boot.</p>
2699
2700       </div>
2701       <div class="tags">
2702
2703
2704         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>.
2705
2706
2707       </div>
2708     </div>
2709     <div class="padding"></div>
2710
2711     <div class="entry">
2712       <div class="title">
2713         <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>
2714       </div>
2715       <div class="date">
2716         14th May 2013
2717       </div>
2718       <div class="body">
2719         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2720 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
2721 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
2722
2723 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
2724 2013-05-14</strong></p>
2725
2726 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
2727 alpha1, based on <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
2728 codename "Wheezy".</p>
2729
2730 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2731
2732 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
2733 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
2734 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
2735 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
2736 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
2737 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
2738 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
2739 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
2740
2741 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
2742 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
2743 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
2744
2745 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2746 <ul>
2747   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
2748     default.</li>
2749   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
2750   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
2751   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
2752     ibus-anthy.</li>
2753 </ul>
2754
2755 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
2756 <ul>
2757
2758   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
2759     reliability improvements.</li>
2760   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
2761     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
2762   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
2763     problems.</li>
2764   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
2765     direct:// URL.</li>
2766   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
2767   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
2768   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
2769   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
2770     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
2771   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
2772     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
2773 </ul>
2774
2775 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
2776 <ul>
2777
2778   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
2779     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
2780     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
2781   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
2782   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
2783     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
2784   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
2785   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
2786   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
2787     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
2788   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
2789     password submission problem
2790     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
2791
2792 </ul>
2793
2794 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
2795
2796 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2797 <ul>
2798
2799   <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>
2800   <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>
2801   <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>
2802
2803 </ul>
2804
2805 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
2806
2807 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
2808
2809 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
2810
2811 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
2812
2813       </div>
2814       <div class="tags">
2815
2816
2817         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2818
2819
2820       </div>
2821     </div>
2822     <div class="padding"></div>
2823
2824     <div class="entry">
2825       <div class="title">
2826         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
2827       </div>
2828       <div class="date">
2829         11th May 2013
2830       </div>
2831       <div class="body">
2832         <P>In January,
2833 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
2834 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
2835 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
2836 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
2837 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
2838 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
2839 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
2840 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
2841 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
2842 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
2843 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
2844 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
2845
2846 <p><table>
2847 <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>
2848 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
2849 <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>
2850 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
2851 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
2852 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
2853 <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>
2854 <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>
2855 <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>
2856 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
2857 </table></p>
2858
2859 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
2860 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
2861 available in experimental.</p>
2862
2863 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
2864 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
2865 for LEGO designers.</p>
2866
2867       </div>
2868       <div class="tags">
2869
2870
2871         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>.
2872
2873
2874       </div>
2875     </div>
2876     <div class="padding"></div>
2877
2878     <div class="entry">
2879       <div class="title">
2880         <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>
2881       </div>
2882       <div class="date">
2883          5th May 2013
2884       </div>
2885       <div class="body">
2886         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
2887 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
2888 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
2889 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
2890 soon.</p>
2891
2892 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
2893 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
2894 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
2895 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
2896 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
2897 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
2898 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
2899 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
2900 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
2901 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
2902 Edu.</a>
2903
2904 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
2905 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
2906 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
2907 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
2908 follow.<p>
2909
2910       </div>
2911       <div class="tags">
2912
2913
2914         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>.
2915
2916
2917       </div>
2918     </div>
2919     <div class="padding"></div>
2920
2921     <div class="entry">
2922       <div class="title">
2923         <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>
2924       </div>
2925       <div class="date">
2926         26th April 2013
2927       </div>
2928       <div class="body">
2929         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
2930 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
2931 announcement:</p>
2932
2933 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
2934 2013-04-26</strong></p>
2935
2936 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
2937 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
2938
2939 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2940
2941 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
2942 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
2943 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
2944 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
2945 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
2946 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
2947 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
2948 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
2949 installed via the network.</p>
2950
2951 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
2952 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
2953 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
2954
2955 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2956
2957 <ul>
2958 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
2959   <ul>
2960      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
2961      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
2962          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
2963          manual.)</li>
2964      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
2965      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
2966      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
2967      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
2968      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
2969      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
2970      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
2971      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
2972      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
2973      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
2974      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
2975      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
2976          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
2977          manual</a> for more details.</li>
2978      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
2979          installation.</li>
2980      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
2981          <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>
2982   </ul></li>
2983 </ul>
2984
2985 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
2986 <ul>
2987 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
2988     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
2989     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
2990 </ul>
2991
2992 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
2993 <ul>
2994 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
2995     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
2996     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
2997 </ul>
2998
2999 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
3000 <ul>
3001 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
3002     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
3003     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
3004 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
3005     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
3006     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
3007 </ul>
3008
3009 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
3010 <ul>
3011 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
3012     yet.</li>
3013 </ul>
3014
3015 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
3016
3017 <ul>
3018 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
3019     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
3020     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
3021 </ul>
3022
3023 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
3024
3025 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
3026 <ul>
3027 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
3028 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
3029 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
3030 </ul>
3031
3032 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
3033
3034 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
3035
3036 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
3037
3038 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
3039
3040       </div>
3041       <div class="tags">
3042
3043
3044         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3045
3046
3047       </div>
3048     </div>
3049     <div class="padding"></div>
3050
3051     <div class="entry">
3052       <div class="title">
3053         <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>
3054       </div>
3055       <div class="date">
3056         16th April 2013
3057       </div>
3058       <div class="body">
3059         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
3060 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
3061 Details about the gathering can be found
3062 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
3063 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
3064 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
3065 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
3066 weekend.</p>
3067
3068 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
3069 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
3070 Edu release.</p>
3071
3072 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
3073
3074       </div>
3075       <div class="tags">
3076
3077
3078         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3079
3080
3081       </div>
3082     </div>
3083     <div class="padding"></div>
3084
3085     <div class="entry">
3086       <div class="title">
3087         <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>
3088       </div>
3089       <div class="date">
3090          3rd April 2013
3091       </div>
3092       <div class="body">
3093         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
3094 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
3095 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
3096 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
3097
3098 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
3099 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
3100 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
3101 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
3102 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
3103 BTS. :)</p>
3104
3105       </div>
3106       <div class="tags">
3107
3108
3109         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>.
3110
3111
3112       </div>
3113     </div>
3114     <div class="padding"></div>
3115
3116     <div class="entry">
3117       <div class="title">
3118         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
3119       </div>
3120       <div class="date">
3121         26th March 2013
3122       </div>
3123       <div class="body">
3124         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
3125 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
3126 font you use when printing.</p>
3127
3128 <p>Three years ago,
3129 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
3130 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
3131 changed their default front from
3132 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
3133 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
3134 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
3135 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
3136 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
3137 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
3138 prints.</p>
3139
3140 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
3141 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
3142 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
3143 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
3144 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
3145 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
3146 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
3147 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
3148 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
3149 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
3150 depend on the documents printed.</p>
3151
3152 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
3153 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
3154 and save some money in the process.</p>
3155
3156 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
3157 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
3158 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
3159 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
3160 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
3161 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
3162 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
3163 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
3164 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
3165
3166       </div>
3167       <div class="tags">
3168
3169
3170         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3171
3172
3173       </div>
3174     </div>
3175     <div class="padding"></div>
3176
3177     <div class="entry">
3178       <div class="title">
3179         <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>
3180       </div>
3181       <div class="date">
3182         24th March 2013
3183       </div>
3184       <div class="body">
3185         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
3186 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
3187 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
3188 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
3189 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
3190 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
3191 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
3192 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
3193 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
3194 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
3195 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
3196 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
3197
3198 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
3199 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
3200 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
3201 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
3202 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
3203 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
3204 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
3205 all I had to do was to use the
3206 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
3207 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
3208 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
3209 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
3210 xsltproc/fop (aka
3211 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
3212 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
3213 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
3214 technical detail.</p>
3215
3216 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
3217 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
3218 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
3219 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
3220 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
3221 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
3222
3223 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
3224 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
3225 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
3226 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
3227 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
3228 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
3229 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
3230 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
3231 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
3232
3233 <p><blockquote><pre>
3234 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
3235 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
3236   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
3237     &lt;hr/&gt;
3238   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
3239 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
3240 </pre></blockquote></p>
3241
3242 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
3243
3244 <p><blockquote><pre>
3245 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
3246 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
3247   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
3248     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
3249       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
3250     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
3251   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
3252 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
3253 </pre></blockquote></p>
3254
3255 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
3256 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
3257 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
3258 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
3259 enough.</p>
3260
3261 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
3262 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
3263 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
3264 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
3265 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
3266 look like this:</p>
3267
3268 <p><blockquote><pre>
3269 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
3270 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
3271   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
3272     &lt;br/&gt;
3273   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
3274 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
3275 </pre></blockquote></p>
3276
3277 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
3278
3279 <p><blockquote><pre>
3280 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
3281 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
3282   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
3283   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
3284     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
3285   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
3286 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
3287 </pre></blockquote></p>
3288
3289 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
3290 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
3291 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
3292 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
3293 page.</p>
3294
3295 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
3296 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
3297 github</a>
3298 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
3299 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
3300 days.</p>
3301
3302       </div>
3303       <div class="tags">
3304
3305
3306         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>.
3307
3308
3309       </div>
3310     </div>
3311     <div class="padding"></div>
3312
3313     <div class="entry">
3314       <div class="title">
3315         <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>
3316       </div>
3317       <div class="date">
3318         17th March 2013
3319       </div>
3320       <div class="body">
3321         <p>Via
3322 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
3323 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
3324 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
3325 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
3326 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
3327 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
3328 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
3329
3330 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
3331 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
3332
3333 <blockquote>
3334 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
3335 </blockquote>
3336
3337 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
3338
3339 <blockquote>
3340 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
3341 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
3342 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
3343 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
3344 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
3345 </blockquote>
3346
3347 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
3348 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
3349 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
3350 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
3351
3352 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
3353 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
3354
3355 <blockquote>
3356 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
3357 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
3358 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
3359 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
3360 </blockquote>
3361
3362 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
3363 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
3364 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
3365 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
3366 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
3367
3368 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
3369 embedding:</p>
3370
3371 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
3372
3373       </div>
3374       <div class="tags">
3375
3376
3377         Tags: <a href="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>.
3378
3379
3380       </div>
3381     </div>
3382     <div class="padding"></div>
3383
3384     <div class="entry">
3385       <div class="title">
3386         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
3387       </div>
3388       <div class="date">
3389          8th March 2013
3390       </div>
3391       <div class="body">
3392         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
3393 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
3394 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
3395 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
3396 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
3397 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
3398 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
3399
3400 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
3401
3402 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
3403 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
3404
3405 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
3406 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
3407 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
3408 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
3409 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
3410 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
3411
3412 <p>Images are available for download at
3413 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
3414
3415 <p>md5sums:
3416 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
3417 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
3418 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
3419
3420 <p>sha1sums:
3421 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
3422 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
3423 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
3424
3425 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
3426
3427 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
3428 2013-03-03:</p>
3429
3430 <ul>
3431   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
3432   <ul>
3433         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
3434         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
3435   </ul></li>
3436   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
3437   <ul>
3438         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
3439         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
3440   </ul></li>
3441   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
3442      <ul>
3443         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
3444         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
3445         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
3446                 Closes: #664596</li>
3447         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
3448                 Closes: #664976</li>
3449         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
3450            <ul>
3451                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
3452                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
3453            </ul></li>
3454         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
3455            <ul>
3456                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
3457                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
3458                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
3459                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
3460                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
3461            </ul></li>
3462         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
3463     </ul>
3464   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
3465     <ul>
3466         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
3467     </ul></li>
3468 </ul>
3469
3470 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
3471 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
3472 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
3473 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
3474
3475 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
3476 mailinglist
3477 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
3478 </p></blockquote>
3479
3480 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
3481
3482       </div>
3483       <div class="tags">
3484
3485
3486         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3487
3488
3489       </div>
3490     </div>
3491     <div class="padding"></div>
3492
3493     <div class="entry">
3494       <div class="title">
3495         <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>
3496       </div>
3497       <div class="date">
3498          3rd March 2013
3499       </div>
3500       <div class="body">
3501         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
3502 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
3503 support using
3504 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
3505 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
3506 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
3507 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
3508 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
3509 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
3510 using the GNU LGPL, and
3511 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
3512
3513 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
3514 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
3515 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
3516 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
3517 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
3518 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
3519
3520 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
3521 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
3522 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
3523 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
3524 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
3525 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
3526 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
3527 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
3528 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
3529 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
3530 signal distribution is handled using
3531 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
3532 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
3533 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
3534 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
3535 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
3536 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
3537 them up a bit more first.</p>
3538
3539 <p>The development is coordinated on the
3540 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
3541 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
3542 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
3543 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
3544 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
3545 development.</p>
3546
3547       </div>
3548       <div class="tags">
3549
3550
3551         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>.
3552
3553
3554       </div>
3555     </div>
3556     <div class="padding"></div>
3557
3558     <div class="entry">
3559       <div class="title">
3560         <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>
3561       </div>
3562       <div class="date">
3563         27th February 2013
3564       </div>
3565       <div class="body">
3566         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
3567 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
3568 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
3569 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
3570 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
3571 (where I am the chair of the board) and
3572 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
3573 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
3574 GNU», with this description:
3575
3576 <p><blockquote>
3577 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
3578 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
3579 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
3580 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
3581 </blockquote></p>
3582
3583 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
3584 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
3585 am really curious how many will show up.  See
3586 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
3587 page</a> for the location details.</p>
3588
3589       </div>
3590       <div class="tags">
3591
3592
3593         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>.
3594
3595
3596       </div>
3597     </div>
3598     <div class="padding"></div>
3599
3600     <div class="entry">
3601       <div class="title">
3602         <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>
3603       </div>
3604       <div class="date">
3605         15th February 2013
3606       </div>
3607       <div class="body">
3608         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
3609 now a great source of free maps available from
3610 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
3611 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
3612 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
3613 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
3614 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
3615 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
3616 page for descriptions).</p>
3617
3618 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
3619 map you can just edit the
3620 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
3621 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
3622
3623       </div>
3624       <div class="tags">
3625
3626
3627         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>.
3628
3629
3630       </div>
3631     </div>
3632     <div class="padding"></div>
3633
3634     <div class="entry">
3635       <div class="title">
3636         <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>
3637       </div>
3638       <div class="date">
3639         12th February 2013
3640       </div>
3641       <div class="body">
3642         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
3643 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
3644 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
3645 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
3646 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
3647 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
3648 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
3649 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
3650 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
3651 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
3652 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
3653 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
3654 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
3655 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
3656 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
3657 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
3658
3659 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
3660 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
3661 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
3662 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
3663 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
3664 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
3665 fields:</p>
3666
3667 <p><pre>
3668 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
3669 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
3670 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
3671 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
3672 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
3673 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
3674 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
3675 </pre></p>
3676
3677 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
3678 answer regarding
3679 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
3680 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
3681 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
3682 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
3683
3684 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
3685
3686 <p><pre>
3687 BEGIN:VCARD
3688 VERSION:2.1
3689 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
3690 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
3691 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
3692 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
3693 REV:20130212T095000Z
3694 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
3695 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
3696 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
3697 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
3698 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
3699 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
3700 END:VCARD
3701 </pre></p>
3702
3703 <p>The resulting QR code created using
3704 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
3705 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
3706 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
3707 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
3708 system.</p>
3709
3710 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
3711
3712 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
3713 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
3714 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
3715 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
3716
3717 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
3718 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
3719
3720       </div>
3721       <div class="tags">
3722
3723
3724         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>.
3725
3726
3727       </div>
3728     </div>
3729     <div class="padding"></div>
3730
3731     <div class="entry">
3732       <div class="title">
3733         <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>
3734       </div>
3735       <div class="date">
3736         10th February 2013
3737       </div>
3738       <div class="body">
3739         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
3740
3741 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
3742 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
3743 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
3744 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
3745 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
3746 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
3747 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
3748 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
3749 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
3750 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
3751 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
3752
3753 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
3754 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
3755 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
3756 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
3757 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
3758 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
3759 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
3760 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
3761 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
3762 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
3763 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
3764 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
3765 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
3766 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
3767 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
3768 ones own
3769 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
3770 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
3771 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
3772 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
3773 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
3774 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
3775 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
3776 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
3777 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
3778 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
3779 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
3780
3781 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
3782 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
3783 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
3784 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
3785 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
3786 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
3787
3788 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
3789 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
3790 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
3791
3792       </div>
3793       <div class="tags">
3794
3795
3796         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3797
3798
3799       </div>
3800     </div>
3801     <div class="padding"></div>
3802
3803     <div class="entry">
3804       <div class="title">
3805         <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>
3806       </div>
3807       <div class="date">
3808          2nd February 2013
3809       </div>
3810       <div class="body">
3811         <p>My
3812 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
3813 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
3814 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
3815 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
3816 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
3817 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
3818 version too.</p>
3819
3820 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
3821 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
3822 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
3823 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
3824 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
3825 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
3826 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
3827 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
3828
3829 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
3830 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
3831 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
3832 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
3833 it. :)</p>
3834
3835 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3836 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3837 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3838
3839       </div>
3840       <div class="tags">
3841
3842
3843         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>.
3844
3845
3846       </div>
3847     </div>
3848     <div class="padding"></div>
3849
3850     <div class="entry">
3851       <div class="title">
3852         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
3853       </div>
3854       <div class="date">
3855         22nd January 2013
3856       </div>
3857       <div class="body">
3858         <p>Yesterday, I
3859 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
3860 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
3861 pluggable hardware devices, which I
3862 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
3863 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
3864 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
3865 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
3866 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
3867 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
3868 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
3869 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
3870 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
3871 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
3872
3873 <pre>
3874 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
3875 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
3876 </pre>
3877
3878 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
3879 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
3880 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
3881 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
3882
3883 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
3884 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
3885 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
3886 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
3887 word.</p>
3888
3889 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
3890 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
3891 process.</p>
3892
3893 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
3894 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
3895
3896       </div>
3897       <div class="tags">
3898
3899
3900         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>.
3901
3902
3903       </div>
3904     </div>
3905     <div class="padding"></div>
3906
3907     <div class="entry">
3908       <div class="title">
3909         <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>
3910       </div>
3911       <div class="date">
3912         21st January 2013
3913       </div>
3914       <div class="body">
3915         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
3916 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
3917 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
3918 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
3919 it, fetch the
3920 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
3921 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
3922 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
3923 autostart script.</p>
3924
3925 <p>The design is simple:</p>
3926
3927 <ul>
3928
3929 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
3930 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
3931
3932 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3933 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3934 initially did.</li>
3935
3936 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3937 the APT database, a database
3938 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
3939 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
3940
3941 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3942 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3943 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3944 package or packages.</li>
3945
3946 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
3947 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
3948
3949 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3950 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
3951
3952 </ul>
3953
3954 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
3955 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
3956 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3957 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
3958
3959 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
3960 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
3961 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
3962 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
3963 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
3964
3965 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3966 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
3967 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3968 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3969 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3970 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3971 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3972 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
3973
3974 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
3975 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3976 '<tt>svn checkout
3977 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3978 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
3979 devscripts package.</p>
3980
3981 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
3982 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3983 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
3984 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
3985 instructions</a> for details.</p>
3986
3987       </div>
3988       <div class="tags">
3989
3990
3991         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>.
3992
3993
3994       </div>
3995     </div>
3996     <div class="padding"></div>
3997
3998     <div class="entry">
3999       <div class="title">
4000         <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>
4001       </div>
4002       <div class="date">
4003         19th January 2013
4004       </div>
4005       <div class="body">
4006         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
4007 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
4008 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
4009 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
4010 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
4011 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
4012 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
4013 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
4014 not a durable solution.
4015
4016 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
4017 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
4018
4019 <ul>
4020
4021 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
4022   than A4).</li>
4023 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
4024 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
4025 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
4026 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
4027 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
4028 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
4029 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
4030 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
4031 size).</li>
4032 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
4033   X.org packages.</li>
4034 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
4035   the time).
4036
4037 </ul>
4038
4039 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
4040 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
4041 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
4042 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
4043 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
4044 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
4045 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
4046 still be useful.</p>
4047
4048 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
4049 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
4050 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
4051 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
4052 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
4053 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
4054
4055       </div>
4056       <div class="tags">
4057
4058
4059         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>.
4060
4061
4062       </div>
4063     </div>
4064     <div class="padding"></div>
4065
4066     <div class="entry">
4067       <div class="title">
4068         <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>
4069       </div>
4070       <div class="date">
4071         18th January 2013
4072       </div>
4073       <div class="body">
4074         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
4075 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
4076 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
4077 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
4078 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
4079 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
4080 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
4081
4082 <pre>
4083 #!/usr/bin/python
4084 import sys
4085 import apt
4086 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
4087     cache = apt.Cache()
4088     cache.open(None)
4089     thepkgs = []
4090     for pkg in cache:
4091         version = pkg.candidate
4092         if version is None:
4093             version = pkg.installed
4094         if version is None:
4095             continue
4096         record = version.record
4097         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
4098             continue
4099         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
4100         for t in mime_types:
4101             t = t.rstrip().strip()
4102             if t == mimetype:
4103                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
4104     return thepkgs
4105 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
4106 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
4107     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
4108 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
4109 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
4110     print "  %s" %pkg
4111 </pre>
4112
4113 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
4114
4115 <pre>
4116 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
4117 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
4118   gecko-mediaplayer
4119 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
4120 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
4121   browser-plugin-gnash
4122 %
4123 </pre>
4124
4125 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
4126 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
4127 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
4128 anyone working on adding it?</p>
4129
4130 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
4131 request for icweasel support for this feature is
4132 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
4133 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
4134 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
4135 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
4136
4137       </div>
4138       <div class="tags">
4139
4140
4141         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>.
4142
4143
4144       </div>
4145     </div>
4146     <div class="padding"></div>
4147
4148     <div class="entry">
4149       <div class="title">
4150         <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>
4151       </div>
4152       <div class="date">
4153         16th January 2013
4154       </div>
4155       <div class="body">
4156         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
4157 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
4158 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
4159 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
4160 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
4161 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
4162 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
4163 downloaded by the browser.</p>
4164
4165 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
4166 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
4167 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
4168 can be found on the
4169 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
4170 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
4171 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
4172 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
4173 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
4174
4175 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
4176
4177 <pre>
4178   count MIME type
4179   ----- -----------------------
4180      32 text/plain
4181      30 audio/mpeg
4182      29 image/png
4183      28 image/jpeg
4184      27 application/ogg
4185      26 audio/x-mp3
4186      25 image/tiff
4187      25 image/gif
4188      22 image/bmp
4189      22 audio/x-wav
4190      20 audio/x-flac
4191      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4192      18 video/x-ms-asf
4193      18 audio/x-musepack
4194      18 audio/x-mpeg
4195      18 application/x-ogg
4196      17 video/mpeg
4197      17 audio/x-scpls
4198      17 audio/ogg
4199      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4200 </pre>
4201
4202 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
4203
4204 <pre>
4205   count MIME type
4206   ----- -----------------------
4207      33 text/plain
4208      32 image/png
4209      32 image/jpeg
4210      29 audio/mpeg
4211      27 image/gif
4212      26 image/tiff
4213      26 application/ogg
4214      25 audio/x-mp3
4215      22 image/bmp
4216      21 audio/x-wav
4217      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4218      19 audio/x-mpeg
4219      18 video/mpeg
4220      18 audio/x-scpls
4221      18 audio/x-flac
4222      18 application/x-ogg
4223      17 video/x-ms-asf
4224      17 text/html
4225      17 audio/x-musepack
4226      16 image/x-xbitmap
4227 </pre>
4228
4229 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
4230
4231 <pre>
4232   count MIME type
4233   ----- -----------------------
4234      31 text/plain
4235      31 image/png
4236      31 image/jpeg
4237      29 audio/mpeg
4238      28 application/ogg
4239      27 image/gif
4240      26 image/tiff
4241      26 audio/x-mp3
4242      23 audio/x-wav
4243      22 image/bmp
4244      21 audio/x-flac
4245      20 audio/x-mpegurl
4246      19 audio/x-mpeg
4247      18 video/x-ms-asf
4248      18 video/mpeg
4249      18 audio/x-scpls
4250      18 application/x-ogg
4251      17 audio/x-musepack
4252      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4253      16 video/x-msvideo
4254 </pre>
4255
4256 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
4257 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
4258 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
4259 issues.</p>
4260
4261 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
4262 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
4263
4264       </div>
4265       <div class="tags">
4266
4267
4268         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>.
4269
4270
4271       </div>
4272     </div>
4273     <div class="padding"></div>
4274
4275     <div class="entry">
4276       <div class="title">
4277         <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>
4278       </div>
4279       <div class="date">
4280         15th January 2013
4281       </div>
4282       <div class="body">
4283         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
4284 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
4285 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
4286 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
4287 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
4288 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
4289 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
4290 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
4291 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
4292 packages.</p>
4293
4294 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
4295 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
4296 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
4297 modalias.</p>
4298
4299 <p><blockquote>
4300 Package: package-name
4301 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
4302 </blockquote></p>
4303
4304 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
4305 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
4306
4307 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
4308 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
4309
4310 <p><blockquote>
4311 Package: cheese
4312 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
4313 </blockquote></p>
4314
4315 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
4316 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
4317
4318 <p><blockquote>
4319 Package: pcmciautils
4320 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
4321 </blockquote></p>
4322
4323 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
4324 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
4325
4326 <p><blockquote>
4327 Package: colorhug-client
4328 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
4329 </blockquote></p>
4330
4331 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
4332 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
4333 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
4334
4335 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
4336 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
4337 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
4338 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
4339 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
4340 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
4341 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
4342 Raring.</p>
4343
4344 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
4345 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
4346 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
4347 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
4348 try the
4349 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
4350 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
4351 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
4352 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
4353
4354 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
4355 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
4356
4357 <p><blockquote>
4358 % ./hw-support-lookup
4359 <br>yubikey-personalization
4360 <br>%
4361 </blockquote></p>
4362
4363 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
4364 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
4365
4366 <p><blockquote>
4367 % ./hw-support-lookup
4368 <br>pcmciautils
4369 <br>%
4370 </blockquote></p>
4371
4372 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
4373 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
4374 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
4375
4376 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
4377 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
4378 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
4379 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
4380 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
4381 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
4382 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
4383 see if it work.</p>
4384
4385 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4386 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4387 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4388 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4389
4390       </div>
4391       <div class="tags">
4392
4393
4394         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>.
4395
4396
4397       </div>
4398     </div>
4399     <div class="padding"></div>
4400
4401     <div class="entry">
4402       <div class="title">
4403         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
4404       </div>
4405       <div class="date">
4406         14th January 2013
4407       </div>
4408       <div class="body">
4409         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
4410 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
4411 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
4412 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
4413 in
4414 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4415 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
4416
4417 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
4418
4419 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
4420 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
4421 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
4422 &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;,
4423 &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
4424 &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;.
4425
4426 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
4427 this shell script:</p>
4428
4429 <pre>
4430 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
4431 </pre>
4432
4433 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
4434 using modinfo:</p>
4435
4436 <pre>
4437 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
4438 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
4439 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
4440 %
4441 </pre>
4442
4443 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
4444
4445 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
4446 Bridge memory controller:</p>
4447
4448 <p><blockquote>
4449 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
4450 </blockquote></p>
4451
4452 <p>This represent these values:</p>
4453
4454 <pre>
4455  v   00008086  (vendor)
4456  d   00002770  (device)
4457  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
4458  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
4459  bc  06        (bus class)
4460  sc  00        (bus subclass)
4461  i   00        (interface)
4462 </pre>
4463
4464 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
4465 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
4466 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
4467 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
4468
4469 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
4470 means.</p>
4471
4472 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
4473
4474 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
4475 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
4476
4477 <p><blockquote>
4478 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
4479 </blockquote></p>
4480
4481 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
4482
4483 <pre>
4484  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
4485  p    0001  (device product)
4486  d    0206  (bcddevice)
4487  dc     09  (device class)
4488  dsc    00  (device subclass)
4489  dp     00  (device protocol)
4490  ic     09  (interface class)
4491  isc    00  (interface subclass)
4492  ip     00  (interface protocol)
4493 </pre>
4494
4495 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
4496 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
4497 these alias entries show up:</p>
4498
4499 <p><blockquote>
4500 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
4501 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
4502 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
4503 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
4504 </blockquote></p>
4505
4506 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
4507 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
4508 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
4509
4510 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
4511
4512 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
4513 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
4514
4515 <p><blockquote>
4516 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4517 </blockquote></p>
4518
4519 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
4520
4521 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
4522
4523 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
4524 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
4525 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
4526
4527 <p><blockquote>
4528 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
4529 </blockquote></p>
4530
4531 <p>The values present are</p>
4532
4533 <pre>
4534  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
4535  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
4536  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
4537  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
4538  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
4539  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
4540  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
4541  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
4542  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
4543  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
4544  ct   10             (chassis type)
4545  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
4546 </pre>
4547
4548 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
4549 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
4550
4551 <pre>
4552   3 Desktop
4553   4 Low Profile Desktop
4554   5 Pizza Box
4555   6 Mini Tower
4556   7 Tower
4557   8 Portable
4558   9 Laptop
4559  10 Notebook
4560  11 Hand Held
4561  12 Docking Station
4562  13 All In One
4563  14 Sub Notebook
4564  15 Space-saving
4565  16 Lunch Box
4566  17 Main Server Chassis
4567  18 Expansion Chassis
4568  19 Sub Chassis
4569  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
4570  21 Peripheral Chassis
4571  22 RAID Chassis
4572  23 Rack Mount Chassis
4573  24 Sealed-case PC
4574  25 Multi-system
4575  26 CompactPCI
4576  27 AdvancedTCA
4577  28 Blade
4578  29 Blade Enclosing
4579 </pre>
4580
4581 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
4582 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
4583 claim it is a desktop.</p>
4584
4585 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
4586
4587 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
4588 test machine:</p>
4589
4590 <p><blockquote>
4591 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
4592 </blockquote></p>
4593
4594 <p>The values present are</p>
4595
4596 <pre>
4597   ty  01  (type)
4598   pr  00  (prototype)
4599   id  00  (id)
4600   ex  00  (extra)
4601 </pre>
4602
4603 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
4604 the valid values are.</p>
4605
4606 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
4607
4608 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
4609 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
4610 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
4611 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
4612 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
4613 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
4614 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
4615
4616 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
4617
4618 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
4619 one can use the following shell script:</p>
4620
4621 <pre>
4622   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
4623     echo "$id" ; \
4624     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
4625   done
4626 </pre>
4627
4628 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
4629 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
4630
4631 <pre>
4632   acpi:ACPI0003:
4633     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
4634   acpi:device:
4635   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
4636   acpi:IBM0068:
4637     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
4638     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
4639     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
4640     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
4641   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4642     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
4643     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
4644     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
4645   [...]
4646 </pre>
4647
4648 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4649 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4650 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4651 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4652
4653 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
4654 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
4655 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
4656
4657       </div>
4658       <div class="tags">
4659
4660
4661         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>.
4662
4663
4664       </div>
4665     </div>
4666     <div class="padding"></div>
4667
4668     <div class="entry">
4669       <div class="title">
4670         <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>
4671       </div>
4672       <div class="date">
4673         10th January 2013
4674       </div>
4675       <div class="body">
4676         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
4677 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
4678 Launcher and updated the Debian package
4679 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
4680 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
4681 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
4682 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
4683 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
4684 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
4685 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
4686 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
4687 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
4688 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
4689 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
4690 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
4691 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
4692 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
4693 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
4694
4695       </div>
4696       <div class="tags">
4697
4698
4699         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>.
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/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
4709       </div>
4710       <div class="date">
4711          9th January 2013
4712       </div>
4713       <div class="body">
4714         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
4715 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
4716 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
4717 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
4718 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
4719 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
4720 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
4721 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
4722 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
4723 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
4724 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
4725
4726 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
4727 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
4728 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
4729 simple:
4730
4731 <ul>
4732
4733 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
4734   starting when a user log in.</li>
4735
4736 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
4737   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
4738
4739 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
4740   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
4741   packages.</li>
4742
4743 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
4744   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
4745
4746 </ul>
4747
4748 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
4749 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
4750 discover database to find packages and
4751 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
4752 packages.</p>
4753
4754 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
4755 draft package is now checked into
4756 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4757 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
4758 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
4759 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
4760 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
4761 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
4762 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
4763 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
4764 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
4765 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
4766 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
4767 because of the freeze).</p>
4768
4769 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
4770 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
4771 inserted):</p>
4772
4773 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
4774
4775 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
4776 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
4777 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
4778
4779 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
4780 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
4781 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
4782 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
4783 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
4784 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
4785 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
4786
4787 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
4788 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
4789 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
4790 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
4791 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
4792 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
4793 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
4794 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
4795 not be installed?</p>
4796
4797 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
4798 please send me an email. :)</p>
4799
4800       </div>
4801       <div class="tags">
4802
4803
4804         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>.
4805
4806
4807       </div>
4808     </div>
4809     <div class="padding"></div>
4810
4811     <div class="entry">
4812       <div class="title">
4813         <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>
4814       </div>
4815       <div class="date">
4816          2nd January 2013
4817       </div>
4818       <div class="body">
4819         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
4820 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
4821 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
4822 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
4823 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
4824 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
4825 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
4826 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
4827 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
4828 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
4829
4830 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
4831 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
4832 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
4833
4834       </div>
4835       <div class="tags">
4836
4837
4838         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>.
4839
4840
4841       </div>
4842     </div>
4843     <div class="padding"></div>
4844
4845     <div class="entry">
4846       <div class="title">
4847         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
4848       </div>
4849       <div class="date">
4850         28th December 2012
4851       </div>
4852       <div class="body">
4853         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
4854 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
4855 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
4856 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
4857 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
4858 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
4859 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
4860 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
4861 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
4862 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
4863 followed by many others. :)</p>
4864
4865 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
4866 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
4867 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
4868 you want to donate to the project.</p>
4869
4870       </div>
4871       <div class="tags">
4872
4873
4874         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4875
4876
4877       </div>
4878     </div>
4879     <div class="padding"></div>
4880
4881     <div class="entry">
4882       <div class="title">
4883         <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>
4884       </div>
4885       <div class="date">
4886         25th December 2012
4887       </div>
4888       <div class="body">
4889         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
4890 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
4891
4892 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
4893 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
4894 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
4895 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
4896 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
4897 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
4898 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
4899 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
4900 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
4901 name.</p>
4902
4903 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
4904 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
4905 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
4906
4907 <blockquote><pre>
4908 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
4909 cd bitcoin
4910 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
4911 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
4912 </pre></blockquote>
4913
4914 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
4915 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
4916 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
4917 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
4918 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
4919 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
4920 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
4921 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
4922 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
4923
4924 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4925 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4926 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4927
4928       </div>
4929       <div class="tags">
4930
4931
4932         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>.
4933
4934
4935       </div>
4936     </div>
4937     <div class="padding"></div>
4938
4939     <div class="entry">
4940       <div class="title">
4941         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
4942       </div>
4943       <div class="date">
4944         21st December 2012
4945       </div>
4946       <div class="body">
4947         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
4948 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
4949 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
4950 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
4951 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
4952 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
4953 is now maintained by a
4954 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
4955 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
4956 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
4957 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
4958 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
4959 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
4960 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
4961 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
4962 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
4963 Corallo in a
4964 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
4965 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
4966 Debian package.</p>
4967
4968 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
4969 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
4970 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
4971 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
4972 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
4973 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
4974 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
4975 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
4976 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
4977 new version to unstable.
4978
4979 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
4980 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
4981 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
4982 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
4983 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
4984 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
4985 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
4986 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
4987 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
4988 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
4989 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
4990 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
4991 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
4992 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
4993 have not tested them.</p>
4994
4995 <p>My
4996 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
4997 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
4998 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
4999 years ago, as can be
5000 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
5001 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
5002 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
5003 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
5004 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
5005 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
5006 the same address as last time,
5007 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5008
5009       </div>
5010       <div class="tags">
5011
5012
5013         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>.
5014
5015
5016       </div>
5017     </div>
5018     <div class="padding"></div>
5019
5020     <div class="entry">
5021       <div class="title">
5022         <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>
5023       </div>
5024       <div class="date">
5025         18th December 2012
5026       </div>
5027       <div class="body">
5028         <p>A few days ago I came across
5029 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
5030 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
5031 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
5032 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
5033 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
5034 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
5035 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
5036 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
5037 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
5038
5039 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
5040 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
5041 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
5042 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
5043
5044 <blockquote><pre>
5045 2004-05-27 Book Store
5046       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
5047       Liabilities:Visa
5048 </pre></blockquote>
5049
5050 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
5051 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
5052 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
5053 Spang</a>,
5054 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
5055 Keen</a>,
5056 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
5057 Cantino</a> and
5058 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
5059 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
5060 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
5061 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
5062 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
5063
5064 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
5065 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
5066 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
5067 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
5068 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
5069
5070 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
5071 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
5072 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
5073 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
5074 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
5075 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
5076 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
5077 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
5078 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
5079
5080       </div>
5081       <div class="tags">
5082
5083
5084         Tags: <a href="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>.
5085
5086
5087       </div>
5088     </div>
5089     <div class="padding"></div>
5090
5091     <div class="entry">
5092       <div class="title">
5093         <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>
5094       </div>
5095       <div class="date">
5096          6th December 2012
5097       </div>
5098       <div class="body">
5099         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
5100 Oslo</a>, we use the
5101 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
5102 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
5103 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
5104 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
5105 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
5106 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
5107 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
5108 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
5109 Python.</p>
5110
5111 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
5112 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
5113 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
5114 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
5115 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
5116 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
5117
5118 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
5119 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
5120 user currently logged in:</p>
5121
5122 <blockquote><pre>
5123 #!/usr/bin/env python
5124 import getpass
5125 import xmlrpclib
5126 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
5127 username = getpass.getuser()
5128 password = getpass.getpass()
5129 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
5130 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
5131 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
5132 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
5133 result = server.logout(sessionid)
5134 print result
5135 </pre></blockquote>
5136
5137 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
5138 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
5139
5140       </div>
5141       <div class="tags">
5142
5143
5144         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>.
5145
5146
5147       </div>
5148     </div>
5149     <div class="padding"></div>
5150
5151     <div class="entry">
5152       <div class="title">
5153         <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>
5154       </div>
5155       <div class="date">
5156         17th November 2012
5157       </div>
5158       <div class="body">
5159         <p>While working on a
5160 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
5161 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
5162 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
5163 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
5164 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
5165 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
5166
5167 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
5168 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
5169 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
5170 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
5171 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
5172 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
5173 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
5174 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
5175 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
5176 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
5177 arguments.</p>
5178
5179 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
5180 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
5181 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
5182 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
5183 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
5184 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
5185 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
5186 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
5187
5188 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
5189 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
5190 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
5191 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
5192 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
5193 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
5194 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
5195 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
5196 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
5197 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
5198 correct right holder.</p>
5199
5200 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
5201 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
5202 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
5203 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
5204 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
5205 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
5206 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
5207 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
5208 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
5209 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
5210 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
5211 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
5212 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
5213 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
5214
5215 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
5216 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
5217 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
5218
5219 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
5220 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
5221
5222       </div>
5223       <div class="tags">
5224
5225
5226         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>.
5227
5228
5229       </div>
5230     </div>
5231     <div class="padding"></div>
5232
5233     <div class="entry">
5234       <div class="title">
5235         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
5236       </div>
5237       <div class="date">
5238         14th November 2012
5239       </div>
5240       <div class="body">
5241         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
5242 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
5243 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
5244 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
5245 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
5246 the people behind the German
5247 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
5248 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
5249 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
5250
5251 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5252
5253 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
5254 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
5255 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
5256
5257 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
5258 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
5259 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
5260 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
5261 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
5262 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
5263
5264 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
5265 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
5266 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
5267 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
5268 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
5269 relationship management and the communication processes in the
5270 project.</p>
5271
5272 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
5273 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
5274 and a yoga teacher.</p>
5275
5276 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
5277 project?</strong></p>
5278
5279 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
5280
5281 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
5282 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
5283 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
5284 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
5285 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
5286 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
5287 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
5288 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
5289 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
5290 parents.</p>
5291
5292 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
5293 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
5294 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
5295 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
5296 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
5297 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
5298 Germany.</p>
5299
5300 <p>For information about our school project you can read
5301 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
5302 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
5303
5304 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5305 Edu?</strong></p>
5306
5307 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
5308 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
5309
5310 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
5311 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
5312 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
5313 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
5314 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
5315 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
5316 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
5317 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
5318 teachers, parents...</p>
5319
5320 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5321 Edu?</strong></p>
5322
5323 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
5324 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
5325
5326 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
5327 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
5328 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
5329 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
5330 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
5331
5332 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
5333 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
5334 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
5335 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
5336 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
5337 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
5338 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
5339
5340 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5341
5342 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
5343 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
5344 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
5345 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
5346
5347 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5348 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5349
5350 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
5351 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
5352 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
5353 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
5354 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
5355
5356 <ul>
5357
5358 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
5359 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
5360 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
5361
5362 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
5363 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
5364 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
5365 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
5366 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
5367 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
5368 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
5369
5370 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
5371 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
5372 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
5373 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
5374
5375 </ul>
5376
5377       </div>
5378       <div class="tags">
5379
5380
5381         Tags: <a href="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>.
5382
5383
5384       </div>
5385     </div>
5386     <div class="padding"></div>
5387
5388     <div class="entry">
5389       <div class="title">
5390         <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>
5391       </div>
5392       <div class="date">
5393          4th November 2012
5394       </div>
5395       <div class="body">
5396         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
5397 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
5398 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
5399 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
5400 see how a member of the bitcoin community
5401 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
5402 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
5403 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
5404 competition.  My thoughts go to the
5405 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
5406 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
5407 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
5408 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
5409 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
5410
5411 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
5412 that the community already seem to have
5413 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
5414 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
5415 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
5416 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
5417 wealth is available.</p>
5418
5419       </div>
5420       <div class="tags">
5421
5422
5423         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>.
5424
5425
5426       </div>
5427     </div>
5428     <div class="padding"></div>
5429
5430     <div class="entry">
5431       <div class="title">
5432         <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>
5433       </div>
5434       <div class="date">
5435         26th October 2012
5436       </div>
5437       <div class="body">
5438         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
5439 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
5440 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
5441 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
5442 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
5443 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
5444 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
5445 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
5446 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
5447 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
5448 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
5449 it every time.</p>
5450
5451 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
5452 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
5453 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
5454 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
5455 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
5456 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
5457 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
5458 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
5459 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
5460 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
5461 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
5462 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
5463
5464 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
5465 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
5466 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
5467 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
5468 article: First the unplanned outage:
5469
5470 <blockquote><pre>
5471 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
5472 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
5473 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
5474 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
5475 Duration:    40 minutes
5476 Scope:       Exchange 2003
5477 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
5478              a cluster failover.
5479
5480 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
5481              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
5482 Technician:  [xxx]
5483 </pre></blockquote>
5484
5485 Next the planned outage:
5486
5487 <blockquote><pre>
5488 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
5489 Severity:    Major (Planned)
5490 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
5491 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
5492 Duration:    10 hours
5493 Scope:       H2 Transport
5494 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
5495              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
5496              4510s.
5497 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
5498              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
5499              connectivity.
5500 Technician:  [xxx]
5501 </pre></blockquote>
5502
5503 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
5504 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
5505 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
5506 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
5507 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
5508 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
5509 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
5510
5511 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
5512 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
5513 university too.  We do register
5514 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
5515 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
5516 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
5517 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
5518 for other sites to consider too?</p>
5519
5520       </div>
5521       <div class="tags">
5522
5523
5524         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>.
5525
5526
5527       </div>
5528     </div>
5529     <div class="padding"></div>
5530
5531     <div class="entry">
5532       <div class="title">
5533         <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>
5534       </div>
5535       <div class="date">
5536         22nd October 2012
5537       </div>
5538       <div class="body">
5539         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
5540 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
5541 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
5542 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
5543 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
5544 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
5545 background information is available in Norwegian from
5546 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
5547 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
5548 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
5549 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
5550 willing to
5551 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
5552 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
5553 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
5554 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
5555 sounded like
5556 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
5557 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
5558 later.</p>
5559
5560 <p>And thought this action is
5561 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
5562 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
5563 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
5564 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
5565 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
5566 rights.</p>
5567
5568 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
5569 unacceptable terms.  For example
5570 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
5571 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
5572 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
5573 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
5574 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
5575
5576 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
5577 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
5578 restored the account of the user, as reported by
5579 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
5580 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
5581 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
5582 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
5583 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
5584 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
5585 reading two opinions from
5586 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
5587 Phipps</a> and
5588 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
5589 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
5590 details about the original story.</p>
5591
5592       </div>
5593       <div class="tags">
5594
5595
5596         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>.
5597
5598
5599       </div>
5600     </div>
5601     <div class="padding"></div>
5602
5603     <div class="entry">
5604       <div class="title">
5605         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
5606       </div>
5607       <div class="date">
5608         18th October 2012
5609       </div>
5610       <div class="body">
5611         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
5612 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
5613 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
5614 across a marvellous drawing by
5615 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
5616 visualising some of what is going on.
5617
5618 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
5619 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
5620
5621 <blockquote>
5622 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
5623 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
5624 </blockquote>
5625
5626 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
5627 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
5628 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
5629 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
5630 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
5631 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
5632
5633       </div>
5634       <div class="tags">
5635
5636
5637         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>.
5638
5639
5640       </div>
5641     </div>
5642     <div class="padding"></div>
5643
5644     <div class="entry">
5645       <div class="title">
5646         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
5647       </div>
5648       <div class="date">
5649         12th October 2012
5650       </div>
5651       <div class="body">
5652         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
5653 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
5654 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
5655 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
5656 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
5657 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
5658 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
5659 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
5660 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
5661 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
5662 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
5663 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
5664 matter".</p>
5665
5666 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
5667 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
5668 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
5669 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
5670 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
5671 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
5672 to argue its side.</p>
5673
5674 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
5675 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
5676 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
5677 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
5678
5679 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
5680 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
5681 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
5682
5683       </div>
5684       <div class="tags">
5685
5686
5687         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>.
5688
5689
5690       </div>
5691     </div>
5692     <div class="padding"></div>
5693
5694     <div class="entry">
5695       <div class="title">
5696         <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>
5697       </div>
5698       <div class="date">
5699          3rd October 2012
5700       </div>
5701       <div class="body">
5702         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
5703 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
5704 the computer science book collection available in his local
5705 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
5706 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
5707 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
5708 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
5709 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
5710 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
5711 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
5712 recently published books.</p>
5713
5714 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
5715 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
5716 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
5717 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
5718 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
5719 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
5720 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
5721 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
5722 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
5723 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
5724 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
5725 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
5726 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
5727 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
5728 for the library that evening.</p>
5729
5730 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
5731 going to know that for example
5732 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
5733 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
5734 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
5735 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
5736 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
5737 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
5738 book right away.</p>
5739
5740       </div>
5741       <div class="tags">
5742
5743
5744         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5745
5746
5747       </div>
5748     </div>
5749     <div class="padding"></div>
5750
5751     <div class="entry">
5752       <div class="title">
5753         <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>
5754       </div>
5755       <div class="date">
5756         23rd September 2012
5757       </div>
5758       <div class="body">
5759         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
5760 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
5761 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
5762 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
5763 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
5764 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
5765
5766 When I started, I
5767 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
5768 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
5769 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
5770 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
5771 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
5772 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
5773 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
5774
5775 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
5776
5777 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
5778 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
5779 the project files currently available from
5780 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
5781
5782 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
5783 the updated
5784 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
5785 and
5786 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
5787 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
5788 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
5789 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
5790
5791       </div>
5792       <div class="tags">
5793
5794
5795         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>.
5796
5797
5798       </div>
5799     </div>
5800     <div class="padding"></div>
5801
5802     <div class="entry">
5803       <div class="title">
5804         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
5805       </div>
5806       <div class="date">
5807         17th September 2012
5808       </div>
5809       <div class="body">
5810         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
5811 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
5812 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
5813 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
5814 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
5815 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
5816 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
5817
5818 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5819
5820 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
5821 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
5822 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
5823 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
5824 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
5825 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
5826 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
5827 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
5828 training is anyway very important</p>
5829
5830 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
5831 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
5832 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
5833 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
5834 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
5835
5836 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
5837 project?</strong></p>
5838
5839 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
5840 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
5841 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
5842 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
5843 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
5844 hole.</p>
5845
5846 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5847 Edu?</strong></p>
5848
5849 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
5850 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
5851 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
5852 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
5853 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
5854 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
5855 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
5856 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
5857 hassle.</p>
5858
5859 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5860 Edu?</strong></p>
5861
5862 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
5863 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
5864 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
5865 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
5866 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
5867 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
5868 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
5869 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
5870
5871 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5872
5873 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
5874 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
5875 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
5876 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
5877 has the same...</p>
5878
5879 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
5880 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
5881 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
5882 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
5883
5884 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5885 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5886
5887 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
5888 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
5889 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
5890
5891 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
5892 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
5893 don't.</p>
5894
5895 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
5896 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
5897 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
5898 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
5899 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
5900 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
5901 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
5902
5903       </div>
5904       <div class="tags">
5905
5906
5907         Tags: <a href="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>.
5908
5909
5910       </div>
5911     </div>
5912     <div class="padding"></div>
5913
5914     <div class="entry">
5915       <div class="title">
5916         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
5917       </div>
5918       <div class="date">
5919         15th September 2012
5920       </div>
5921       <div class="body">
5922         <p>After the
5923 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
5924 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
5925 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
5926 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
5927 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
5928 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
5929 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
5930 was
5931 <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
5932 formal working group should be formed.</p>
5933
5934 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
5935 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
5936 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
5937 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
5938 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
5939 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
5940 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
5941 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
5942
5943 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
5944 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
5945 IETF.</p>
5946
5947       </div>
5948       <div class="tags">
5949
5950
5951         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>.
5952
5953
5954       </div>
5955     </div>
5956     <div class="padding"></div>
5957
5958     <div class="entry">
5959       <div class="title">
5960         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
5961       </div>
5962       <div class="date">
5963         12th September 2012
5964       </div>
5965       <div class="body">
5966         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
5967 publication of of
5968 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
5969 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
5970 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
5971 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
5972 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
5973 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
5974 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
5975 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
5976 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
5977 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
5978
5979 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
5980 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
5981 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
5982 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
5983
5984 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
5985 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
5986
5987       </div>
5988       <div class="tags">
5989
5990
5991         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>.
5992
5993
5994       </div>
5995     </div>
5996     <div class="padding"></div>
5997
5998     <div class="entry">
5999       <div class="title">
6000         <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>
6001       </div>
6002       <div class="date">
6003          7th September 2012
6004       </div>
6005       <div class="body">
6006         <p>As I
6007 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
6008 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
6009 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
6010 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
6011 repository for the project</a>.</p>
6012
6013 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
6014 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
6015 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
6016 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
6017
6018 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
6019 PostScript formats at
6020 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
6021 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
6022
6023       </div>
6024       <div class="tags">
6025
6026
6027         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>.
6028
6029
6030       </div>
6031     </div>
6032     <div class="padding"></div>
6033
6034     <div class="entry">
6035       <div class="title">
6036         <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>
6037       </div>
6038       <div class="date">
6039         23rd August 2012
6040       </div>
6041       <div class="body">
6042         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
6043 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
6044 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
6045 revisit the great site
6046 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
6047 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
6048 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
6049
6050       </div>
6051       <div class="tags">
6052
6053
6054         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>.
6055
6056
6057       </div>
6058     </div>
6059     <div class="padding"></div>
6060
6061     <div class="entry">
6062       <div class="title">
6063         <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>
6064       </div>
6065       <div class="date">
6066         17th August 2012
6067       </div>
6068       <div class="body">
6069         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
6070 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
6071 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
6072 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
6073 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
6074 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
6075 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
6076 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
6077 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
6078 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
6079 summer I
6080 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
6081 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
6082 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
6083
6084 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
6085 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
6086 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
6087 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
6088 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
6089 progress:</p>
6090
6091 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
6092
6093 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
6094 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
6095 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
6096 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
6097 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
6098 english version of the docbook source.</p>
6099
6100 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
6101 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
6102 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
6103 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
6104 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
6105 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
6106 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
6107 project files currently available from <a
6108 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
6109
6110 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
6111 the updated
6112 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
6113 and
6114 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
6115 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
6116 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
6117 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
6118
6119       </div>
6120       <div class="tags">
6121
6122
6123         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>.
6124
6125
6126       </div>
6127     </div>
6128     <div class="padding"></div>
6129
6130     <div class="entry">
6131       <div class="title">
6132         <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>
6133       </div>
6134       <div class="date">
6135         10th August 2012
6136       </div>
6137       <div class="body">
6138         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
6139 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
6140 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
6141 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
6142 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
6143 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
6144 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
6145 case for the language
6146 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
6147 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
6148
6149 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
6150 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
6151 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
6152 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
6153 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
6154
6155 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
6156 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
6157 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
6158 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
6159 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
6160 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
6161 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
6162 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
6163 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
6164 alias for 'nb'.</p>
6165
6166 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
6167 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
6168 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
6169 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
6170 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
6171 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
6172 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
6173 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
6174 at the same time. :(</p>
6175
6176 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
6177 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
6178 processors. :(</p>
6179
6180 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
6181
6182       </div>
6183       <div class="tags">
6184
6185
6186         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>.
6187
6188
6189       </div>
6190     </div>
6191     <div class="padding"></div>
6192
6193     <div class="entry">
6194       <div class="title">
6195         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
6196       </div>
6197       <div class="date">
6198         31st July 2012
6199       </div>
6200       <div class="body">
6201         <p>I tried to send this text to the
6202 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
6203 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
6204 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
6205 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
6206 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
6207 out.</p>
6208
6209 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
6210 learning curve at the moment.</p>
6211
6212 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
6213 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
6214 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
6215 available from
6216 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
6217 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
6218 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
6219 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
6220 Squeeze.</p>
6221
6222 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
6223 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
6224 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
6225 problems.</p>
6226
6227 <ul>
6228
6229 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
6230    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
6231    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
6232    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
6233    index references spanning several pages (See
6234    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
6235    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
6236    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
6237
6238 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
6239    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
6240    #683163</a>).</li>
6241
6242 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
6243    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
6244    footnote and text body, see
6245    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
6246    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
6247    refs listed are not right).</li>
6248
6249 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
6250
6251 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
6252    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
6253
6254 </ul>
6255
6256 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
6257 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
6258 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
6259
6260 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
6261
6262       </div>
6263       <div class="tags">
6264
6265
6266         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>.
6267
6268
6269       </div>
6270     </div>
6271     <div class="padding"></div>
6272
6273     <div class="entry">
6274       <div class="title">
6275         <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>
6276       </div>
6277       <div class="date">
6278         21st July 2012
6279       </div>
6280       <div class="body">
6281         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
6282 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
6283 norwegian version</a> of the book
6284 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
6285 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
6286 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
6287 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
6288 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
6289
6290 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
6291 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
6292 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
6293 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
6294 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
6295 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
6296 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
6297 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
6298 print. :)</p>
6299
6300 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
6301 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
6302 language.</p>
6303
6304       </div>
6305       <div class="tags">
6306
6307
6308         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>.
6309
6310
6311       </div>
6312     </div>
6313     <div class="padding"></div>
6314
6315     <div class="entry">
6316       <div class="title">
6317         <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>
6318       </div>
6319       <div class="date">
6320         16th July 2012
6321       </div>
6322       <div class="body">
6323         <p>I am currently working on a
6324 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
6325 to translate</a> the book
6326 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
6327 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
6328 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
6329 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
6330 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
6331 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
6332 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
6333
6334 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
6335 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
6336 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
6337 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
6338 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
6339 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
6340 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
6341 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
6342 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
6343
6344       </div>
6345       <div class="tags">
6346
6347
6348         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>.
6349
6350
6351       </div>
6352     </div>
6353     <div class="padding"></div>
6354
6355     <div class="entry">
6356       <div class="title">
6357         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
6358       </div>
6359       <div class="date">
6360          9th July 2012
6361       </div>
6362       <div class="body">
6363         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
6364 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
6365 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
6366 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
6367 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
6368 to adjust and scale the just released
6369 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
6370 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
6371 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
6372
6373 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6374
6375 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
6376 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
6377 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
6378 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
6379 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
6380 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
6381 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
6382 perspective when working with IT.</p>
6383
6384 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
6385 project?</strong></p>
6386
6387 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
6388 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
6389 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
6390 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
6391 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
6392 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
6393
6394 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6395 Edu?</strong></p>
6396
6397 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
6398 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
6399 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
6400 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
6401 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
6402 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
6403 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
6404 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
6405 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
6406 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
6407 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
6408 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
6409 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
6410 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
6411 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
6412 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
6413 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
6414 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
6415 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
6416 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
6417 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
6418 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
6419 quicker to update.
6420
6421 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6422 Edu?</strong></p>
6423
6424 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
6425 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
6426 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
6427 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
6428 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
6429 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
6430
6431 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
6432 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
6433 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
6434 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
6435 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
6436 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
6437 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
6438 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
6439 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
6440 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
6441 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
6442 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
6443 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
6444 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
6445 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
6446
6447 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
6448 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
6449 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
6450 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
6451 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
6452 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
6453 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
6454 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
6455
6456 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
6457 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
6458 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
6459 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
6460 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
6461 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
6462 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
6463 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
6464 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
6465 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
6466 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
6467 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
6468 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
6469 sound file.</p>
6470
6471 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
6472 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
6473 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
6474 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
6475 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
6476 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
6477 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
6478 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
6479 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
6480
6481 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6482
6483 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
6484 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
6485 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
6486 )</p>
6487
6488 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6489 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6490
6491 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
6492 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
6493 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
6494 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
6495 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
6496 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
6497 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
6498 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
6499 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
6500 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
6501 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
6502 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
6503 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
6504 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
6505 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
6506
6507 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
6508 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
6509 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
6510 management with Airtime</a>,
6511 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
6512 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
6513 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
6514 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
6515 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
6516
6517       </div>
6518       <div class="tags">
6519
6520
6521         Tags: <a href="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>.
6522
6523
6524       </div>
6525     </div>
6526     <div class="padding"></div>
6527
6528     <div class="entry">
6529       <div class="title">
6530         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
6531       </div>
6532       <div class="date">
6533          8th July 2012
6534       </div>
6535       <div class="body">
6536         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
6537 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
6538 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
6539 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
6540 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
6541 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
6542 Steinberg in his blog post
6543 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
6544 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
6545 spending of your tax money.</p>
6546
6547 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
6548 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
6549 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
6550 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
6551 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
6552 purchases.</p>
6553
6554       </div>
6555       <div class="tags">
6556
6557
6558         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6559
6560
6561       </div>
6562     </div>
6563     <div class="padding"></div>
6564
6565     <div class="entry">
6566       <div class="title">
6567         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
6568       </div>
6569       <div class="date">
6570          7th July 2012
6571       </div>
6572       <div class="body">
6573         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
6574 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
6575 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
6576 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
6577 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
6578 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
6579 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
6580 receive.  The software is
6581
6582 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
6583 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
6584 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
6585 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
6586 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
6587 Windows</a>.</p>
6588
6589 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
6590 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
6591
6592 <p><ul>
6593
6594   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
6595     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
6596
6597   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
6598     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
6599     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
6600     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
6601     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
6602     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
6603     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
6604     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
6605     </li>
6606
6607   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
6608     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
6609
6610   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
6611     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
6612
6613   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
6614     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
6615
6616   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
6617
6618   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
6619     formats </li>
6620
6621   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
6622     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
6623     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
6624     (as separate sets)</li>
6625
6626   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
6627     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
6628     percentage)</li>
6629
6630   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
6631     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
6632     memory):
6633     <ul>
6634       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
6635       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
6636       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
6637       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
6638       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
6639       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
6640       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
6641       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
6642       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
6643       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
6644           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
6645           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
6646           activity)</li>
6647       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
6648       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
6649     </ul></li>
6650
6651   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
6652     <ul>
6653       <li>Break periods</li>
6654       <li>For teacher(s):
6655         <ul>
6656           <li>Not available periods</li>
6657           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
6658           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
6659           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
6660           <li>Min hours daily</li>
6661           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
6662
6663           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
6664             days per week</li>
6665         </ul></li>
6666       <li>For students (sets):
6667         <ul>
6668           <li>Not available periods</li>
6669           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
6670           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
6671           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
6672           <li>Min hours daily</li>
6673           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
6674
6675           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
6676             days per week</li>
6677         </ul></li>
6678       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
6679         <ul>
6680           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
6681           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
6682           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
6683           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
6684           <li>End(s) students day</li>
6685           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
6686           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
6687             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
6688           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
6689           <li>Not overlapping</li>
6690           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
6691           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
6692         </ul></li>
6693     </ul></li>
6694
6695   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
6696     <ul>
6697       <li>Room not available periods</li>
6698       <li>For teacher(s):
6699         <ul>
6700           <li>Home room(s)</li>
6701           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
6702           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
6703         </ul>
6704       </li>
6705
6706       <li>For students (sets):
6707         <ul>
6708           <li>Home room(s)</li>
6709           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
6710           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
6711         </ul>
6712       </li>
6713       <li>Preferred room(s):
6714         <ul>
6715           <li>For a subject</li>
6716           <li>For an activity tag</li>
6717           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
6718           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
6719         </ul>
6720       </li>
6721
6722       <li>For a set of activities:
6723         <ul>
6724           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
6725         </ul>
6726       </li>
6727     </ul>
6728   </li>
6729 </ul></p>
6730
6731 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
6732 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
6733 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
6734 manually, check it out.
6735
6736 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
6737 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
6738 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
6739 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
6740 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
6741 section</a>.</p>
6742
6743       </div>
6744       <div class="tags">
6745
6746
6747         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6748
6749
6750       </div>
6751     </div>
6752     <div class="padding"></div>
6753
6754     <div class="entry">
6755       <div class="title">
6756         <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>
6757       </div>
6758       <div class="date">
6759          3rd July 2012
6760       </div>
6761       <div class="body">
6762         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
6763 project (Norwegian version of
6764 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
6765 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
6766 a problem with the municipalities using
6767 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
6768 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
6769 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
6770 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
6771 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
6772 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
6773 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
6774 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
6775 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
6776 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
6777 the From: header.</p>
6778
6779 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
6780 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
6781 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
6782 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
6783 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
6784 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
6785 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
6786 behaviour.</p>
6787
6788 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
6789 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
6790 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
6791 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
6792 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
6793 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
6794 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
6795
6796       </div>
6797       <div class="tags">
6798
6799
6800         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>.
6801
6802
6803       </div>
6804     </div>
6805     <div class="padding"></div>
6806
6807     <div class="entry">
6808       <div class="title">
6809         <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>
6810       </div>
6811       <div class="date">
6812         26th June 2012
6813       </div>
6814       <div class="body">
6815         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
6816 another interview with the people behind
6817 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
6818 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
6819 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
6820 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
6821 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
6822 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
6823 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
6824
6825 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6826
6827 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
6828 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
6829 ICT in schools</p>
6830
6831 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
6832 project?</strong></p>
6833
6834 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
6835 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
6836 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
6837 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
6838
6839 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6840 Edu?</strong></p>
6841
6842 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
6843 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
6844 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
6845 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
6846
6847 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6848 Edu?</strong></p>
6849
6850 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
6851 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
6852 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
6853 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
6854 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
6855 technologies in school.</p>
6856
6857 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6858
6859 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
6860 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
6861 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
6862
6863 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6864 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6865
6866 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
6867 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
6868 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
6869 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
6870
6871 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
6872 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
6873 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
6874
6875 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
6876 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
6877 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
6878 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
6879 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
6880 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
6881 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
6882 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
6883 working there.</p>
6884
6885       </div>
6886       <div class="tags">
6887
6888
6889         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
6890
6891
6892       </div>
6893     </div>
6894     <div class="padding"></div>
6895
6896     <div class="entry">
6897       <div class="title">
6898         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
6899       </div>
6900       <div class="date">
6901         24th June 2012
6902       </div>
6903       <div class="body">
6904         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
6905 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
6906 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
6907 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
6908 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
6909 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
6910 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
6911 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
6912 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
6913 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
6914 missing in my book.</p>
6915
6916 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
6917 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
6918 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
6919 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
6920 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
6921 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
6922 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
6923
6924       </div>
6925       <div class="tags">
6926
6927
6928         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>.
6929
6930
6931       </div>
6932     </div>
6933     <div class="padding"></div>
6934
6935     <div class="entry">
6936       <div class="title">
6937         <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>
6938       </div>
6939       <div class="date">
6940         11th June 2012
6941       </div>
6942       <div class="body">
6943         <p>During my work on
6944 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
6945 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
6946 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
6947 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
6948 explanation.</p>
6949
6950 <p><ul>
6951
6952 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
6953 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
6954 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
6955 system depend on tasksel tasks in
6956 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
6957 installation.</li>
6958
6959 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
6960 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
6961 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
6962 at least try to enable it for these services:
6963 <ul>
6964
6965   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
6966     quotas.</li>
6967   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
6968   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
6969   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
6970   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
6971   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
6972
6973 </ul></li>
6974
6975 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
6976 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
6977 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
6978 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
6979
6980 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
6981 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
6982 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
6983
6984 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
6985 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
6986 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
6987 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
6988 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
6989 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
6990
6991 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
6992 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
6993 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
6994 in Wheezy.
6995
6996 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
6997 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
6998 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
6999
7000 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
7001 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
7002 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
7003 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
7004
7005 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
7006 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
7007 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
7008 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
7009
7010 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
7011 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
7012 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
7013
7014 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
7015 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
7016 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
7017
7018 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
7019 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
7020 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
7021 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
7022 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
7023
7024 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
7025 <ul>
7026
7027 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
7028 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
7029 <li>and probably more?</li>
7030 </ul></li>
7031
7032 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
7033 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
7034 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
7035 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
7036 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
7037 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
7038 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
7039 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
7040
7041
7042 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
7043 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
7044 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
7045 use.</li>
7046
7047 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
7048 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
7049 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
7050 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
7051 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
7052
7053 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
7054 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
7055 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
7056 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
7057 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
7058 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
7059
7060 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
7061 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
7062 There are at least three implementations,
7063 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
7064 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
7065 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
7066 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
7067 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
7068 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
7069 given room.</li>
7070
7071 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
7072 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
7073 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
7074 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
7075 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
7076 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
7077 investigated.</li>
7078
7079 </ul></p>
7080
7081 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
7082 version.</p>
7083
7084       </div>
7085       <div class="tags">
7086
7087
7088         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7089
7090
7091       </div>
7092     </div>
7093     <div class="padding"></div>
7094
7095     <div class="entry">
7096       <div class="title">
7097         <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>
7098       </div>
7099       <div class="date">
7100          9th June 2012
7101       </div>
7102       <div class="body">
7103         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
7104 <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
7105 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
7106 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
7107 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
7108 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
7109 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
7110 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
7111 be willing to pay for.</p>
7112
7113 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
7114 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
7115 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
7116 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
7117 Orwell</a>.</p>
7118
7119       </div>
7120       <div class="tags">
7121
7122
7123         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>.
7124
7125
7126       </div>
7127     </div>
7128     <div class="padding"></div>
7129
7130     <div class="entry">
7131       <div class="title">
7132         <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>
7133       </div>
7134       <div class="date">
7135          6th June 2012
7136       </div>
7137       <div class="body">
7138         <p>A few days ago
7139 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
7140 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
7141 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
7142 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
7143 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
7144 code for HP, Dell and IBM
7145 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
7146 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
7147 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
7148 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
7149 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
7150
7151 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
7152 output:
7153
7154 <blockquote><pre>
7155 % 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>
7156 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": ""})
7157 %
7158 </pre></blockquote>
7159
7160 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
7161 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
7162 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
7163
7164       </div>
7165       <div class="tags">
7166
7167
7168         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>.
7169
7170
7171       </div>
7172     </div>
7173     <div class="padding"></div>
7174
7175     <div class="entry">
7176       <div class="title">
7177         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
7178       </div>
7179       <div class="date">
7180          2nd June 2012
7181       </div>
7182       <div class="body">
7183         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
7184 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
7185 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
7186 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
7187 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
7188 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
7189
7190 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7191
7192 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
7193 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
7194 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
7195 by Angela).</p>
7196
7197 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
7198 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
7199 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
7200 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
7201 becoming an osteopath.</p>
7202
7203 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
7204 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
7205 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
7206 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
7207 skills with communication skills.</p>
7208
7209 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7210 project?</strong></p>
7211
7212 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
7213 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
7214 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
7215 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
7216 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
7217
7218 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
7219 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
7220 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
7221 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
7222 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
7223 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
7224 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
7225 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
7226 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
7227
7228 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
7229 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
7230 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
7231
7232 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
7233
7234 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
7235 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
7236 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
7237 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
7238 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
7239 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
7240 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
7241 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
7242 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
7243 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
7244 point.</p>
7245
7246 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
7247 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
7248 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
7249 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
7250 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
7251 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
7252
7253 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
7254 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
7255 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
7256 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
7257 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
7258 spare time.</p>
7259
7260 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
7261 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
7262 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
7263 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
7264 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
7265
7266 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
7267 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
7268 avoidance do exist.</p>
7269
7270 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
7271 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
7272 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
7273 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
7274 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
7275 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
7276 and probably a gain for all.</p>
7277
7278 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7279 Edu?</strong></p>
7280
7281 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
7282 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
7283 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
7284 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
7285 project communication, honest communication within the group of
7286 developers, etc.</p>
7287
7288 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7289 Edu?</strong></p>
7290
7291 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
7292
7293 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
7294 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
7295 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
7296 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
7297 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
7298 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
7299 contribute).</p>
7300
7301 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
7302 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
7303 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
7304 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
7305 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
7306 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
7307 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
7308 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
7309 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
7310 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
7311
7312 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7313
7314 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
7315
7316 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
7317 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
7318 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
7319
7320 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
7321 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
7322 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
7323 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
7324
7325 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
7326 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
7327 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
7328 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
7329 whiteboard.</p>
7330
7331 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
7332
7333 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7334 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7335
7336 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
7337 enrol people.</p>
7338
7339       </div>
7340       <div class="tags">
7341
7342
7343         Tags: <a href="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>.
7344
7345
7346       </div>
7347     </div>
7348     <div class="padding"></div>
7349
7350     <div class="entry">
7351       <div class="title">
7352         <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>
7353       </div>
7354       <div class="date">
7355          1st June 2012
7356       </div>
7357       <div class="body">
7358         <p>A few years ago I wrote
7359 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
7360 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
7361 I have learned from colleges here at the
7362 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
7363 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
7364 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
7365 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
7366 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
7367
7368 <p><pre>
7369 use strict;
7370 use warnings;
7371 use SOAP::Lite;
7372 use Data::Dumper;
7373 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
7374 my $App = 'test';
7375 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
7376 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
7377 my $s = SOAP::Lite
7378     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
7379     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
7380     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
7381     ;
7382 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
7383     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
7384     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
7385     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
7386 );
7387 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
7388 </pre></p>
7389
7390 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
7391
7392 <p><pre>
7393 $VAR1 = {
7394           'Asset' => {
7395                      'Entitlements' => {
7396                                        'EntitlementData' => [
7397                                                             {
7398                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
7399                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
7400                                                               'Provider' => '',
7401                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
7402                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
7403                                                             },
7404                                                             {
7405                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
7406                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
7407                                                               'Provider' => '',
7408                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
7409                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
7410                                                             },
7411                                                             {
7412                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
7413                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
7414                                                               'Provider' => '',
7415                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
7416                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
7417                                                             }
7418                                                           ]
7419                                      },
7420                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
7421                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
7422                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
7423                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
7424                                           'Buid' => '2323',
7425                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
7426                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
7427                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
7428                                         }
7429                    }
7430         };
7431 </pre></p>
7432
7433 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
7434 service outside the
7435 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
7436 documentation</a>, and according to
7437 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
7438 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
7439 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
7440
7441 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
7442 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
7443
7444       </div>
7445       <div class="tags">
7446
7447
7448         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>.
7449
7450
7451       </div>
7452     </div>
7453     <div class="padding"></div>
7454
7455     <div class="entry">
7456       <div class="title">
7457         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
7458       </div>
7459       <div class="date">
7460         31st May 2012
7461       </div>
7462       <div class="body">
7463         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
7464 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
7465 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
7466 running Debian Squeeze, where
7467 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
7468 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
7469 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
7470 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
7471 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
7472 another day.</p>
7473
7474 <p>After calibration, I get a
7475 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
7476 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
7477 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
7478 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
7479 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
7480 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
7481 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
7482 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
7483 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
7484 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
7485 and a simple</p>
7486
7487 <p><pre>
7488 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
7489 </pre></p>
7490
7491 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
7492 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
7493 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
7494 enough for now.</p>
7495
7496       </div>
7497       <div class="tags">
7498
7499
7500         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7501
7502
7503       </div>
7504     </div>
7505     <div class="padding"></div>
7506
7507     <div class="entry">
7508       <div class="title">
7509         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
7510       </div>
7511       <div class="date">
7512         27th May 2012
7513       </div>
7514       <div class="body">
7515         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
7516 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
7517 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
7518 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
7519 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
7520 since then, helping to make sure the
7521 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
7522 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
7523
7524 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7525
7526 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
7527 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
7528 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
7529 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
7530 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
7531 our computer network.</p>
7532
7533 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
7534 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
7535 (4 months).</p>
7536
7537 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7538 project?</strong></p>
7539
7540 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
7541 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
7542 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
7543 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
7544 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
7545 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
7546 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
7547 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
7548 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
7549 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
7550 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
7551 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
7552 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
7553 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
7554
7555 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7556 Edu?</strong></p>
7557
7558 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
7559 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
7560 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
7561 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
7562 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
7563 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
7564 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
7565 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
7566
7567 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7568 Edu?</strong></p>
7569
7570 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
7571 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
7572 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
7573 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
7574 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
7575 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
7576 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
7577 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
7578 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
7579 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
7580 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
7581 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
7582
7583 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7584
7585 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
7586 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
7587 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
7588
7589 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7590 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7591
7592 <p><ol>
7593
7594 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
7595 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
7596 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
7597 developing.</li>
7598
7599 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
7600 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
7601 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
7602 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
7603 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
7604
7605 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
7606 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
7607 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
7608
7609 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
7610 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
7611 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
7612 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
7613
7614 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
7615 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
7616 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
7617
7618 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
7619
7620 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
7621 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
7622 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
7623 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
7624
7625 </ol></p>
7626
7627       </div>
7628       <div class="tags">
7629
7630
7631         Tags: <a href="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>.
7632
7633
7634       </div>
7635     </div>
7636     <div class="padding"></div>
7637
7638     <div class="entry">
7639       <div class="title">
7640         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
7641       </div>
7642       <div class="date">
7643         26th May 2012
7644       </div>
7645       <div class="body">
7646         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
7647 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
7648 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
7649 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
7650 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
7651
7652 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
7653 <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>
7654 comment:</p>
7655
7656 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
7657 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
7658 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
7659 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
7660 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
7661 </blockquote></p>
7662
7663 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
7664 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
7665 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
7666 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
7667 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
7668 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
7669 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
7670 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
7671 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
7672 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
7673 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
7674 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
7675 of wasted effort.</p>
7676
7677 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
7678 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
7679 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
7680
7681 <p>See
7682 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
7683 and
7684 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
7685 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
7686 </blockquote></p>
7687
7688       </div>
7689       <div class="tags">
7690
7691
7692         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>.
7693
7694
7695       </div>
7696     </div>
7697     <div class="padding"></div>
7698
7699     <div class="entry">
7700       <div class="title">
7701         <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>
7702       </div>
7703       <div class="date">
7704         18th May 2012
7705       </div>
7706       <div class="body">
7707         <p>In january, I
7708 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
7709 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
7710 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
7711 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
7712 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
7713 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
7714 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
7715 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
7716 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
7717 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
7718
7719 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
7720 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
7721 drivers. :)</p>
7722
7723       </div>
7724       <div class="tags">
7725
7726
7727         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7728
7729
7730       </div>
7731     </div>
7732     <div class="padding"></div>
7733
7734     <div class="entry">
7735       <div class="title">
7736         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
7737       </div>
7738       <div class="date">
7739         13th May 2012
7740       </div>
7741       <div class="body">
7742         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
7743 publish another interview with the people behind
7744 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
7745 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
7746 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
7747 details get right before release.
7748
7749 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7750
7751 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
7752 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
7753 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
7754 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
7755 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
7756 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
7757 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
7758 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
7759
7760 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
7761 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
7762 home since 2006.</p>
7763
7764 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7765 project?</strong></p>
7766
7767 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
7768 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
7769 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
7770 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
7771 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
7772 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
7773
7774 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
7775 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
7776 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
7777 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
7778 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
7779 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
7780 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
7781 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
7782 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
7783 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
7784 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
7785 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
7786 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
7787 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
7788 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
7789 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
7790
7791 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7792 Edu?</strong></p>
7793
7794 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
7795 for me as today.</p>
7796
7797 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
7798
7799 <p><ul>
7800
7801 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
7802 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
7803
7804 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
7805 cost.</li>
7806
7807 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
7808 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
7809 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
7810 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
7811 server</li>
7812
7813 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
7814 school.</li>
7815
7816 </ul></p>
7817
7818 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
7819 came up in this way:</p>
7820
7821 <p><ul>
7822
7823 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
7824 now.</li>
7825
7826 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
7827 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
7828 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
7829
7830 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
7831 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
7832 interfaces used in the past.</li>
7833
7834 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
7835 different needs.</li>
7836
7837 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
7838
7839 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
7840 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
7841 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
7842
7843 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
7844 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
7845
7846 </ul></p>
7847
7848 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7849 Edu?</strong></p>
7850
7851 <p><ul>
7852
7853 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
7854 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
7855 whole municipality areas.</li>
7856
7857 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
7858 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
7859 politicians.</li>
7860
7861 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
7862
7863 </ul></p>
7864
7865 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7866
7867 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
7868 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
7869 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
7870 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
7871 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
7872 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
7873
7874 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
7875 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
7876 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
7877 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
7878 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
7879
7880 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7881 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7882
7883 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
7884 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
7885 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
7886
7887       </div>
7888       <div class="tags">
7889
7890
7891         Tags: <a href="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>.
7892
7893
7894       </div>
7895     </div>
7896     <div class="padding"></div>
7897
7898     <div class="entry">
7899       <div class="title">
7900         <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>
7901       </div>
7902       <div class="date">
7903         30th April 2012
7904       </div>
7905       <div class="body">
7906         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
7907 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
7908
7909 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
7910 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
7911 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
7912 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
7913 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
7914 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
7915 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
7916 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
7917 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
7918 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
7919 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
7920 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
7921 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
7922 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
7923 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
7924 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
7925
7926 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
7927 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
7928 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
7929 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
7930 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
7931 finally found a Danish supplier
7932 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
7933 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
7934 days ago.</p>
7935
7936 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
7937 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
7938 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
7939 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
7940 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
7941 toys.</p>
7942
7943       </div>
7944       <div class="tags">
7945
7946
7947         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7948
7949
7950       </div>
7951     </div>
7952     <div class="padding"></div>
7953
7954     <div class="entry">
7955       <div class="title">
7956         <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>
7957       </div>
7958       <div class="date">
7959         26th April 2012
7960       </div>
7961       <div class="body">
7962         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
7963 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
7964 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
7965 that the video editor application included with
7966 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
7967 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
7968 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
7969
7970 <p><blockquote>
7971 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
7972 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
7973 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
7974 </blockquote></p>
7975
7976 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
7977
7978 <p><blockquote>
7979 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
7980 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
7981 </blockquote></p>
7982
7983 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
7984 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
7985 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
7986 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
7987 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
7988 video.  AMR is
7989 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
7990 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
7991 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
7992 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
7993 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
7994 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
7995 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
7996
7997 <p>I know why I prefer
7998 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
7999 standards</a> also for video.</p>
8000
8001       </div>
8002       <div class="tags">
8003
8004
8005         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>.
8006
8007
8008       </div>
8009     </div>
8010     <div class="padding"></div>
8011
8012     <div class="entry">
8013       <div class="title">
8014         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
8015       </div>
8016       <div class="date">
8017         19th April 2012
8018       </div>
8019       <div class="body">
8020         <p>Here in Norway, the
8021 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
8022 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
8023 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
8024 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
8025 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
8026 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
8027 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
8028 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
8029 on the same level.</p>
8030
8031 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
8032 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
8033 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
8034 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
8035 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
8036 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
8037 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
8038 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
8039 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
8040 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
8041 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
8042 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
8043 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
8044 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
8045 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
8046 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
8047 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
8048 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
8049
8050 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
8051 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
8052 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
8053 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
8054 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
8055 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
8056 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
8057 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
8058
8059 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
8060 from Simon Phipps
8061 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
8062 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
8063
8064 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
8065 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
8066 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
8067 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
8068 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
8069 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
8070 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
8071 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
8072 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
8073
8074       </div>
8075       <div class="tags">
8076
8077
8078         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>.
8079
8080
8081       </div>
8082     </div>
8083     <div class="padding"></div>
8084
8085     <div class="entry">
8086       <div class="title">
8087         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
8088       </div>
8089       <div class="date">
8090         15th April 2012
8091       </div>
8092       <div class="body">
8093         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
8094 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
8095 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
8096 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
8097 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
8098 up in the recently released
8099 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
8100 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
8101
8102 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8103
8104 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
8105 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
8106 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
8107 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
8108 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
8109 information technology and science/technology.</p>
8110
8111 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8112 project?</strong></p>
8113
8114 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
8115 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
8116 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
8117 contributing.</p>
8118
8119 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8120 Edu?</strong></p>
8121
8122 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
8123 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
8124 Debian Project!</p>
8125
8126 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8127 Edu?</strong></p>
8128
8129 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
8130 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
8131 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
8132 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
8133 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
8134 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
8135 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
8136
8137 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
8138 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
8139
8140 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8141
8142 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
8143 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
8144 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
8145 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
8146
8147 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8148 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8149
8150 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
8151 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
8152 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
8153 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
8154 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
8155 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
8156 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
8157
8158 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
8159 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
8160 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
8161 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
8162 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
8163 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
8164 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
8165 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
8166
8167       </div>
8168       <div class="tags">
8169
8170
8171         Tags: <a href="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>.
8172
8173
8174       </div>
8175     </div>
8176     <div class="padding"></div>
8177
8178     <div class="entry">
8179       <div class="title">
8180         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
8181       </div>
8182       <div class="date">
8183          8th April 2012
8184       </div>
8185       <div class="body">
8186         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
8187 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
8188 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
8189 contributor to the
8190 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
8191 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
8192
8193 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8194
8195 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
8196 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
8197
8198 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8199 project?</strong></p>
8200
8201 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
8202 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
8203 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
8204 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
8205 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
8206 "localisation".</p>
8207
8208 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8209 Edu?</strong></p>
8210
8211 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8212 Edu?</strong></p>
8213
8214 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
8215 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
8216 education system.</p>
8217
8218 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
8219 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
8220 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
8221 money on the latest hardware.</p>
8222
8223 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8224
8225 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
8226 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
8227 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
8228
8229 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8230 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8231
8232 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
8233 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
8234 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
8235
8236       </div>
8237       <div class="tags">
8238
8239
8240         Tags: <a href="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>.
8241
8242
8243       </div>
8244     </div>
8245     <div class="padding"></div>
8246
8247     <div class="entry">
8248       <div class="title">
8249         <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>
8250       </div>
8251       <div class="date">
8252          6th April 2012
8253       </div>
8254       <div class="body">
8255         <p>Recently I have spent time with
8256 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
8257 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
8258 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
8259 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
8260 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
8261 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
8262 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
8263 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
8264
8265 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
8266 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
8267 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
8268 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
8269 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
8270 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
8271 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
8272 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
8273
8274 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
8275 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
8276 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
8277 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
8278 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
8279 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
8280 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
8281 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
8282
8283 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
8284 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
8285 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
8286 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
8287 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
8288 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
8289 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
8290 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
8291 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
8292 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
8293
8294 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
8295 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
8296 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
8297 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
8298
8299 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
8300 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
8301
8302       </div>
8303       <div class="tags">
8304
8305
8306         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8307
8308
8309       </div>
8310     </div>
8311     <div class="padding"></div>
8312
8313     <div class="entry">
8314       <div class="title">
8315         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
8316       </div>
8317       <div class="date">
8318          5th April 2012
8319       </div>
8320       <div class="body">
8321         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
8322 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
8323 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
8324 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
8325 for schools.  Check out his article
8326 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
8327 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
8328
8329       </div>
8330       <div class="tags">
8331
8332
8333         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8334
8335
8336       </div>
8337     </div>
8338     <div class="padding"></div>
8339
8340     <div class="entry">
8341       <div class="title">
8342         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
8343       </div>
8344       <div class="date">
8345          1st April 2012
8346       </div>
8347       <div class="body">
8348         <p>Germany is a core area for the
8349 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
8350 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
8351 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
8352
8353 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8354
8355 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
8356 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
8357 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
8358 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
8359 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
8360 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
8361 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
8362 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
8363
8364 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
8365 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
8366 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
8367 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
8368 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
8369 the end of April this year.</p>
8370
8371 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8372 project?</strong></p>
8373
8374 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
8375 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
8376 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
8377 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
8378 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
8379 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
8380 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
8381 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
8382 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
8383 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
8384 Skolelinux.</p>
8385
8386 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
8387 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
8388 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
8389 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
8390 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
8391 the admin teachers.</p>
8392
8393 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8394 Edu?</strong></p>
8395
8396 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
8397 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
8398 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
8399
8400 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
8401 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
8402 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
8403 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
8404 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
8405
8406 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8407 Edu?</strong></p>
8408
8409 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
8410
8411 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8412
8413 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
8414 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
8415 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
8416 LibreOffice.</p>
8417
8418 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8419 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8420
8421 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
8422 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
8423 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
8424
8425       </div>
8426       <div class="tags">
8427
8428
8429         Tags: <a href="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>.
8430
8431
8432       </div>
8433     </div>
8434     <div class="padding"></div>
8435
8436     <div class="entry">
8437       <div class="title">
8438         <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>
8439       </div>
8440       <div class="date">
8441         25th March 2012
8442       </div>
8443       <div class="body">
8444         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
8445
8446 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
8447 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
8448 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
8449 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
8450 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
8451 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
8452 and download as a
8453 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
8454 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
8455
8456 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
8457   <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"' />
8458     <p>Download video as
8459       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
8460 </video></p>
8461
8462       </div>
8463       <div class="tags">
8464
8465
8466         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8467
8468
8469       </div>
8470     </div>
8471     <div class="padding"></div>
8472
8473     <div class="entry">
8474       <div class="title">
8475         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
8476       </div>
8477       <div class="date">
8478         19th March 2012
8479       </div>
8480       <div class="body">
8481         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
8482 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
8483 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
8484 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
8485 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
8486
8487 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8488
8489 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
8490 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
8491 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
8492 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
8493 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
8494 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
8495 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
8496 installations.</p>
8497
8498 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8499 project?</strong></p>
8500
8501 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
8502 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
8503 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
8504 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
8505 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
8506 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
8507 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
8508 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
8509 these things we decided to try it.</p>
8510
8511 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8512 Edu?</strong></p>
8513
8514 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
8515 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
8516 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
8517 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
8518 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
8519 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
8520 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
8521 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
8522
8523 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8524 Edu?</strong></p>
8525
8526 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
8527 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
8528 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
8529 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
8530 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
8531
8532 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8533
8534 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
8535 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
8536 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
8537 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
8538 that counts...)</p>
8539
8540 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8541 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8542
8543 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
8544 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
8545 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
8546 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
8547 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
8548 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
8549 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
8550 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
8551 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
8552 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
8553 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
8554
8555 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
8556 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
8557 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
8558
8559       </div>
8560       <div class="tags">
8561
8562
8563         Tags: <a href="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>.
8564
8565
8566       </div>
8567     </div>
8568     <div class="padding"></div>
8569
8570     <div class="entry">
8571       <div class="title">
8572         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
8573       </div>
8574       <div class="date">
8575         16th March 2012
8576       </div>
8577       <div class="body">
8578         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
8579 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
8580 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
8581 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
8582
8583 <ol>
8584
8585 <li>The documentation is written in a
8586 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
8587 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
8588 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
8589 docbook XML.</li>
8590
8591 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
8592 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
8593 with the translated text.</li>
8594
8595 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
8596 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
8597 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
8598 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
8599 images.</li>
8600
8601 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
8602 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
8603
8604 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
8605 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
8606
8607 </ol>
8608
8609 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
8610 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
8611 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
8612 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
8613 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
8614
8615 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
8616 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
8617 package</a>.</p>
8618
8619       </div>
8620       <div class="tags">
8621
8622
8623         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8624
8625
8626       </div>
8627     </div>
8628     <div class="padding"></div>
8629
8630     <div class="entry">
8631       <div class="title">
8632         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
8633       </div>
8634       <div class="date">
8635         11th March 2012
8636       </div>
8637       <div class="body">
8638         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
8639 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
8640 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
8641 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
8642 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
8643 you have not done so already.</p>
8644
8645 <p>I plan to present the new version at
8646 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
8647 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
8648 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
8649
8650       </div>
8651       <div class="tags">
8652
8653
8654         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8655
8656
8657       </div>
8658     </div>
8659     <div class="padding"></div>
8660
8661     <div class="entry">
8662       <div class="title">
8663         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
8664       </div>
8665       <div class="date">
8666          9th March 2012
8667       </div>
8668       <div class="body">
8669         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
8670 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
8671 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
8672 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
8673 more international audience.</p>
8674
8675 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
8676 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
8677 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
8678 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
8679 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
8680 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
8681 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
8682
8683
8684 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8685
8686 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
8687 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
8688 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
8689 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
8690 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
8691 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
8692 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
8693 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
8694 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
8695 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
8696 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
8697
8698 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8699 project?</strong></p>
8700
8701 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
8702 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
8703 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
8704 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
8705 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
8706 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
8707 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
8708 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
8709 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
8710 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
8711 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
8712 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
8713 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
8714
8715 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8716 Edu?</strong></p>
8717
8718 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
8719 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
8720 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
8721 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
8722 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
8723 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
8724 Japan.</p>
8725
8726 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8727 Edu?</strong></p>
8728
8729 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
8730 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
8731 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
8732 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
8733 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
8734 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
8735 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
8736 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
8737 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
8738 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
8739 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
8740 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
8741 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
8742 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
8743 help.</p>
8744
8745 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8746
8747 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
8748 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
8749 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
8750 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
8751 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
8752 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
8753 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
8754 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
8755 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
8756 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
8757 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
8758
8759 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8760 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8761
8762 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
8763 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
8764 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
8765 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
8766 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
8767 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
8768 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
8769 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
8770 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
8771 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
8772 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
8773 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
8774
8775       </div>
8776       <div class="tags">
8777
8778
8779         Tags: <a href="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>.
8780
8781
8782       </div>
8783     </div>
8784     <div class="padding"></div>
8785
8786     <div class="entry">
8787       <div class="title">
8788         <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>
8789       </div>
8790       <div class="date">
8791          7th March 2012
8792       </div>
8793       <div class="body">
8794         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
8795
8796 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
8797 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
8798 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
8799 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
8800 download as a
8801 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
8802 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
8803
8804 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
8805   <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"' />
8806     <p>Download video as
8807       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
8808 </video></p>
8809
8810       </div>
8811       <div class="tags">
8812
8813
8814         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8815
8816
8817       </div>
8818     </div>
8819     <div class="padding"></div>
8820
8821     <div class="entry">
8822       <div class="title">
8823         <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>
8824       </div>
8825       <div class="date">
8826          4th March 2012
8827       </div>
8828       <div class="body">
8829         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
8830 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
8831 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
8832 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
8833 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
8834 need a software solution for your school.</p>
8835
8836       </div>
8837       <div class="tags">
8838
8839
8840         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8841
8842
8843       </div>
8844     </div>
8845     <div class="padding"></div>
8846
8847     <div class="entry">
8848       <div class="title">
8849         <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>
8850       </div>
8851       <div class="date">
8852          3rd March 2012
8853       </div>
8854       <div class="body">
8855         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
8856 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
8857 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
8858 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
8859 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
8860 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
8861 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
8862 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
8863 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
8864 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
8865 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
8866 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
8867 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
8868 year...</p>
8869
8870 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
8871 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
8872 name,
8873 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
8874 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
8875 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
8876 mean). I've been following
8877 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
8878 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
8879 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
8880 Check it out. :)</p>
8881
8882       </div>
8883       <div class="tags">
8884
8885
8886         Tags: <a href="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>.
8887
8888
8889       </div>
8890     </div>
8891     <div class="padding"></div>
8892
8893     <div class="entry">
8894       <div class="title">
8895         <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>
8896       </div>
8897       <div class="date">
8898         27th February 2012
8899       </div>
8900       <div class="body">
8901         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
8902 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
8903 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
8904 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
8905 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
8906 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
8907 need a software solution for your school.</p>
8908
8909       </div>
8910       <div class="tags">
8911
8912
8913         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8914
8915
8916       </div>
8917     </div>
8918     <div class="padding"></div>
8919
8920     <div class="entry">
8921       <div class="title">
8922         <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>
8923       </div>
8924       <div class="date">
8925         19th February 2012
8926       </div>
8927       <div class="body">
8928         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
8929 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
8930 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
8931 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
8932 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
8933 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
8934 solution for your school.</p>
8935
8936       </div>
8937       <div class="tags">
8938
8939
8940         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8941
8942
8943       </div>
8944     </div>
8945     <div class="padding"></div>
8946
8947     <div class="entry">
8948       <div class="title">
8949         <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>
8950       </div>
8951       <div class="date">
8952         14th February 2012
8953       </div>
8954       <div class="body">
8955         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
8956 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
8957 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
8958 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
8959 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
8960 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
8961 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
8962 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
8963 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
8964
8965 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
8966 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
8967 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
8968 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
8969 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
8970
8971 <blockquote><pre>
8972 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
8973 do
8974     printf "Failed disk $d: "
8975     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
8976 done
8977 </blockquote></pre>
8978
8979 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
8980 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
8981
8982 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
8983
8984 <blockquote><pre>
8985 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
8986 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
8987 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
8988 </blockquote></pre>
8989
8990 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
8991 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
8992 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
8993 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
8994 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
8995 mounted inside my box.</p>
8996
8997 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
8998 Software RAID in the
8999 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
9000 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
9001 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
9002 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
9003 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
9004 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
9005
9006       </div>
9007       <div class="tags">
9008
9009
9010         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>.
9011
9012
9013       </div>
9014     </div>
9015     <div class="padding"></div>
9016
9017     <div class="entry">
9018       <div class="title">
9019         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
9020       </div>
9021       <div class="date">
9022         13th February 2012
9023       </div>
9024       <div class="body">
9025         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
9026 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
9027 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
9028 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
9029 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
9030 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
9031 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
9032 change the global proxy setting by editing
9033 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
9034 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
9035
9036 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
9037 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
9038 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
9039
9040 <blockquote><pre>
9041 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
9042 {
9043    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
9044        isPlainHostName(host) ||
9045        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
9046       return "DIRECT";
9047    else
9048       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
9049 }
9050 </pre></blockquote>
9051
9052 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
9053
9054 <blockquote><pre>
9055 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
9056 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
9057 </pre></blockquote>
9058
9059 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
9060 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
9061 would be used for
9062 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
9063 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
9064 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
9065 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
9066 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
9067 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
9068 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
9069 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
9070 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
9071 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
9072
9073 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
9074 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
9075 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
9076 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
9077 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
9078 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
9079
9080 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
9081 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
9082 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
9083 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
9084 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
9085 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
9086 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
9087 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
9088 the network setup changes.</p>
9089
9090 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
9091 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
9092 draft</a> and a
9093 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
9094 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
9095
9096       </div>
9097       <div class="tags">
9098
9099
9100         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9101
9102
9103       </div>
9104     </div>
9105     <div class="padding"></div>
9106
9107     <div class="entry">
9108       <div class="title">
9109         <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>
9110       </div>
9111       <div class="date">
9112          5th February 2012
9113       </div>
9114       <div class="body">
9115         <p>Since the Lenny version of
9116 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
9117 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
9118 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
9119 in the morning.  This is done using the
9120 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
9121
9122 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
9123 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
9124 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
9125 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
9126 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
9127 the
9128 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
9129 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
9130 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
9131 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
9132 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
9133
9134 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
9135 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
9136 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
9137 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
9138 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
9139 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
9140 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
9141
9142 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
9143 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
9144 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
9145 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
9146 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
9147
9148       </div>
9149       <div class="tags">
9150
9151
9152         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9153
9154
9155       </div>
9156     </div>
9157     <div class="padding"></div>
9158
9159     <div class="entry">
9160       <div class="title">
9161         <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>
9162       </div>
9163       <div class="date">
9164          4th February 2012
9165       </div>
9166       <div class="body">
9167         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
9168 publish the third beta version of
9169 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
9170 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
9171 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
9172 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
9173 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
9174 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
9175 on the project announcement list.</p>
9176
9177 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
9178 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
9179
9180 <ul>
9181
9182 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
9183   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
9184   the installation.</li>
9185
9186 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
9187   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
9188
9189 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
9190   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
9191   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
9192
9193 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
9194   for the local system administrator is created during installation
9195   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
9196   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
9197   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
9198   up to date on the system.</li>
9199
9200 </ul>
9201
9202 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
9203 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
9204 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
9205 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
9206
9207 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
9208 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
9209 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
9210 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
9211 will see you there?</p>
9212
9213       </div>
9214       <div class="tags">
9215
9216
9217         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9218
9219
9220       </div>
9221     </div>
9222     <div class="padding"></div>
9223
9224     <div class="entry">
9225       <div class="title">
9226         <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>
9227       </div>
9228       <div class="date">
9229         27th January 2012
9230       </div>
9231       <div class="body">
9232         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
9233 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
9234 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
9235 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
9236 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
9237 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
9238 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
9239
9240 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
9241 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
9242 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
9243 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
9244 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
9245 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
9246 not taken care of by this.</p>
9247
9248 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
9249 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
9250 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
9251 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
9252 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
9253 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
9254 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
9255 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
9256 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
9257 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
9258 firmware packages.</p>
9259
9260 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
9261 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
9262 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
9263 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
9264 initrd with extra firmware, the
9265 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
9266 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
9267 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
9268
9269 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
9270 network cards working.  For this,
9271 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
9272 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
9273 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
9274
9275 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
9276 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
9277 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
9278
9279 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
9280 try.</p>
9281
9282       </div>
9283       <div class="tags">
9284
9285
9286         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9287
9288
9289       </div>
9290     </div>
9291     <div class="padding"></div>
9292
9293     <div class="entry">
9294       <div class="title">
9295         <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>
9296       </div>
9297       <div class="date">
9298         25th January 2012
9299       </div>
9300       <div class="body">
9301         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
9302 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
9303 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
9304 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
9305 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
9306
9307 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
9308 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
9309 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
9310 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
9311 this is done, log on to the central server and run
9312 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
9313 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
9314 will look similar to this:</p>
9315
9316 <p><blockquote><pre>
9317 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
9318 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
9319 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.
9320
9321 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
9322
9323 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9324 enter password: *******
9325 %
9326 </pre></blockquote></p>
9327
9328 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
9329 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
9330 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
9331 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
9332 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
9333 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
9334 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
9335 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
9336 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
9337 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
9338 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
9339 automatically.</p>
9340
9341 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
9342 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
9343
9344 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
9345 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
9346 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
9347
9348       </div>
9349       <div class="tags">
9350
9351
9352         Tags: <a href="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>.
9353
9354
9355       </div>
9356     </div>
9357     <div class="padding"></div>
9358
9359     <div class="entry">
9360       <div class="title">
9361         <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>
9362       </div>
9363       <div class="date">
9364         10th January 2012
9365       </div>
9366       <div class="body">
9367         <p>In the Squeeze version of
9368 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
9369 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
9370 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
9371 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
9372 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
9373 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
9374 first time.</p>
9375
9376 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
9377 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
9378 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
9379 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
9380
9381 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
9382 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
9383 new setting.</p>
9384
9385 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
9386 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
9387 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
9388
9389       </div>
9390       <div class="tags">
9391
9392
9393         Tags: <a href="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>.
9394
9395
9396       </div>
9397     </div>
9398     <div class="padding"></div>
9399
9400     <div class="entry">
9401       <div class="title">
9402         <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>
9403       </div>
9404       <div class="date">
9405          7th January 2012
9406       </div>
9407       <div class="body">
9408         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
9409 the second beta version of
9410 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
9411 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
9412 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
9413 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
9414 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
9415 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
9416 on the project announcement list.</p>
9417
9418       </div>
9419       <div class="tags">
9420
9421
9422         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9423
9424
9425       </div>
9426     </div>
9427     <div class="padding"></div>
9428
9429     <div class="entry">
9430       <div class="title">
9431         <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>
9432       </div>
9433       <div class="date">
9434          3rd January 2012
9435       </div>
9436       <div class="body">
9437         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
9438 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
9439 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
9440 interesting.</p>
9441
9442 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
9443 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
9444 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
9445 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
9446 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
9447 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
9448 wrap up its tasks.</p>
9449
9450 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
9451 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
9452 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
9453 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
9454 because I was typing.</P>
9455
9456 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
9457 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
9458 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
9459 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
9460 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
9461 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
9462 generate entropy.</p>
9463
9464 <p>The fix is in
9465 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
9466 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
9467 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
9468 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
9469
9470       </div>
9471       <div class="tags">
9472
9473
9474         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9475
9476
9477       </div>
9478     </div>
9479     <div class="padding"></div>
9480
9481     <div class="entry">
9482       <div class="title">
9483         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
9484       </div>
9485       <div class="date">
9486         21st November 2011
9487       </div>
9488       <div class="body">
9489         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
9490 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
9491 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
9492 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
9493 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
9494 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
9495 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
9496 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
9497 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
9498 the tools to do so.</p>
9499
9500 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
9501 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
9502 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
9503 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
9504
9505 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
9506 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
9507 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
9508 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
9509 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
9510 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
9511 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
9512 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
9513
9514 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
9515 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
9516 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
9517
9518 <p><pre>
9519 #!/usr/bin/perl
9520 use strict;
9521 use warnings;
9522 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
9523 BEGIN {
9524     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
9525     my %rhelmodules = (
9526         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
9527         );
9528     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
9529         eval "use $module;";
9530         if ($@) {
9531             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
9532             system("yum install -y $pkg");
9533             eval "use $module;";
9534         }
9535     }
9536 }
9537 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
9538
9539 upgrade_dell();
9540
9541 exit 0;
9542
9543 sub run_firmware_script {
9544     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
9545     unless ($script) {
9546         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
9547         exit 1
9548     }
9549     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
9550
9551     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
9552         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
9553     } else {
9554         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
9555     }
9556 }
9557
9558 sub run_firmware_scripts {
9559     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
9560     # Run firmware packages
9561     for my $dir (@dirs) {
9562         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
9563         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
9564         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
9565             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
9566             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
9567         }
9568         closedir $dh;
9569     }
9570 }
9571
9572 sub download {
9573     my $url = shift;
9574     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
9575     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
9576 }
9577
9578 sub upgrade_dell {
9579     my @dirs;
9580     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
9581     chomp $product;
9582
9583     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
9584
9585         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
9586         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
9587
9588         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
9589             CLEANUP => 1
9590             );
9591         chdir($tmpdir);
9592         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
9593         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
9594         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
9595         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
9596         my $fwopts = "-q";
9597         if (@paths) {
9598             for my $url (@paths) {
9599                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
9600             }
9601             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
9602         } else {
9603             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
9604             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
9605         }
9606         chdir('/');
9607     } else {
9608         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
9609         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
9610     }
9611 }
9612
9613 sub fetch_dell_fw {
9614     my $path = shift;
9615     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
9616     download($url);
9617 }
9618
9619 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
9620 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
9621 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
9622 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
9623     my $filename = shift;
9624
9625     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
9626     chomp $product;
9627     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
9628
9629     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
9630
9631     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
9632     my @paths;
9633     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
9634         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
9635         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
9636         my $oscode;
9637         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
9638             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
9639         } else {
9640             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
9641         }
9642         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
9643         {
9644             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
9645         }
9646     }
9647     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
9648         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
9649
9650         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
9651         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
9652
9653         my $cpath = $component->{path};
9654         for my $path (@paths) {
9655             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
9656                 push(@paths, $cpath);
9657             }
9658         }
9659     }
9660     return @paths;
9661 }
9662 </pre>
9663
9664 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
9665 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
9666 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
9667 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
9668 outdated.</p>
9669
9670       </div>
9671       <div class="tags">
9672
9673
9674         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>.
9675
9676
9677       </div>
9678     </div>
9679     <div class="padding"></div>
9680
9681     <div class="entry">
9682       <div class="title">
9683         <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>
9684       </div>
9685       <div class="date">
9686          7th October 2011
9687       </div>
9688       <div class="body">
9689         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
9690 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
9691 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
9692 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
9693 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
9694 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
9695 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
9696 models.</p>
9697
9698 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
9699 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
9700 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
9701 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
9702
9703 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
9704 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
9705 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
9706 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
9707 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
9708 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
9709 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
9710 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
9711 distributed.</p>
9712
9713 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
9714
9715 <ul>
9716
9717 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
9718   other relevant equipment.</li>
9719
9720 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
9721
9722 </ul>
9723
9724 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
9725 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
9726 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
9727 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
9728 books available.</p>
9729
9730 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
9731 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
9732 libraries. :)</p>
9733
9734       </div>
9735       <div class="tags">
9736
9737
9738         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>.
9739
9740
9741       </div>
9742     </div>
9743     <div class="padding"></div>
9744
9745     <div class="entry">
9746       <div class="title">
9747         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
9748       </div>
9749       <div class="date">
9750         17th September 2011
9751       </div>
9752       <div class="body">
9753         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
9754 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
9755 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
9756 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
9757 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
9758 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
9759 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
9760 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
9761
9762 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
9763
9764 <blockquote><pre>
9765 #!/bin/sh
9766 # apt-get install lsdvd
9767 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
9768 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
9769 </pre></blockquote>
9770
9771 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
9772 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
9773 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
9774 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
9775
9776 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
9777 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
9778 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
9779 back as an ISO.
9780
9781 <blockquote><pre>
9782 #!/bin/sh
9783 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
9784 set -e
9785 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
9786 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
9787 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
9788 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
9789 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
9790 </pre></blockquote>
9791
9792 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
9793
9794 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
9795 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
9796 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
9797 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
9798 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
9799
9800 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
9801 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
9802 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
9803 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
9804 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
9805 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
9806
9807       </div>
9808       <div class="tags">
9809
9810
9811         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>.
9812
9813
9814       </div>
9815     </div>
9816     <div class="padding"></div>
9817
9818     <div class="entry">
9819       <div class="title">
9820         <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>
9821       </div>
9822       <div class="date">
9823          4th August 2011
9824       </div>
9825       <div class="body">
9826         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
9827 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
9828 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
9829 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
9830 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
9831 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
9832 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
9833 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
9834 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
9835
9836 <p><blockquote>
9837 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
9838 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
9839 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
9840 </blockquote></p>
9841
9842 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
9843 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
9844 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
9845 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
9846 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
9847 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
9848 hard to explain.</p>
9849
9850 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
9851 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
9852 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
9853 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
9854 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
9855 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
9856 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
9857 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
9858 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
9859 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
9860 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
9861 mode).</p>
9862
9863 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
9864 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
9865 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
9866 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
9867 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
9868 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
9869 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
9870 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
9871 after visiting single user mode.</p>
9872
9873 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
9874 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
9875 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
9876 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
9877 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
9878 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
9879 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
9880 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
9881
9882 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
9883 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
9884 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
9885
9886       </div>
9887       <div class="tags">
9888
9889
9890         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>.
9891
9892
9893       </div>
9894     </div>
9895     <div class="padding"></div>
9896
9897     <div class="entry">
9898       <div class="title">
9899         <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>
9900       </div>
9901       <div class="date">
9902         30th July 2011
9903       </div>
9904       <div class="body">
9905         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
9906 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
9907 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
9908 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
9909 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
9910 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
9911 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
9912 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
9913 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
9914 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
9915 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
9916 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
9917 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
9918
9919 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
9920 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
9921 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
9922 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
9923 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
9924 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
9925 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
9926 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
9927 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
9928
9929 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
9930 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
9931 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
9932 is presented.</p>
9933
9934 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
9935 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
9936 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
9937 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
9938 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
9939 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
9940 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
9941 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
9942 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
9943 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
9944 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
9945 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
9946 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
9947 find time to push this forward.</p>
9948
9949       </div>
9950       <div class="tags">
9951
9952
9953         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>.
9954
9955
9956       </div>
9957     </div>
9958     <div class="padding"></div>
9959
9960     <div class="entry">
9961       <div class="title">
9962         <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>
9963       </div>
9964       <div class="date">
9965         29th July 2011
9966       </div>
9967       <div class="body">
9968         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
9969 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
9970 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
9971 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
9972 issues.</p>
9973
9974 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
9975 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
9976 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
9977
9978 <ol>
9979
9980 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
9981 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
9982 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
9983 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
9984 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
9985 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
9986 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
9987 Debian.</li>
9988
9989 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
9990 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
9991 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
9992 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
9993 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
9994 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
9995 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
9996 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
9997 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
9998 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
9999 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
10000 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
10001 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
10002
10003 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
10004 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
10005 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
10006 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
10007 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
10008 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
10009 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
10010 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
10011 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
10012 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
10013
10014 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
10015 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
10016 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
10017 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
10018 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
10019 latter behaviour.</li>
10020
10021 </ol>
10022
10023 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
10024 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
10025 it do not matter much.</p>
10026
10027 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
10028 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
10029 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
10030
10031       </div>
10032       <div class="tags">
10033
10034
10035         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>.
10036
10037
10038       </div>
10039     </div>
10040     <div class="padding"></div>
10041
10042     <div class="entry">
10043       <div class="title">
10044         <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>
10045       </div>
10046       <div class="date">
10047         26th July 2011
10048       </div>
10049       <div class="body">
10050         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
10051 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
10052 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
10053 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
10054 security support for a few years.</p>
10055
10056 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
10057 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
10058 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
10059 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
10060 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
10061 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
10062 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
10063 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
10064 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
10065 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
10066 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
10067 easier in the future.</p>
10068
10069 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
10070 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
10071 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
10072 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
10073 do not have time for.</p>
10074
10075       </div>
10076       <div class="tags">
10077
10078
10079         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>.
10080
10081
10082       </div>
10083     </div>
10084     <div class="padding"></div>
10085
10086     <div class="entry">
10087       <div class="title">
10088         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
10089       </div>
10090       <div class="date">
10091         20th June 2011
10092       </div>
10093       <div class="body">
10094         <p>Reading
10095 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
10096 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
10097 parts of the
10098 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
10099 and
10100 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
10101 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
10102 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
10103 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
10104
10105       </div>
10106       <div class="tags">
10107
10108
10109         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>.
10110
10111
10112       </div>
10113     </div>
10114     <div class="padding"></div>
10115
10116     <div class="entry">
10117       <div class="title">
10118         <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>
10119       </div>
10120       <div class="date">
10121         30th April 2011
10122       </div>
10123       <div class="body">
10124         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
10125 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
10126 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
10127 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
10128 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
10129 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
10130 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
10131 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
10132 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
10133 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
10134
10135 <p>Where is it?  Visit
10136 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
10137 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
10138 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
10139 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
10140
10141       </div>
10142       <div class="tags">
10143
10144
10145         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>.
10146
10147
10148       </div>
10149     </div>
10150     <div class="padding"></div>
10151
10152     <div class="entry">
10153       <div class="title">
10154         <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>
10155       </div>
10156       <div class="date">
10157         29th April 2011
10158       </div>
10159       <div class="body">
10160         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
10161 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
10162 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
10163 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
10164 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
10165 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
10166 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
10167 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
10168 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
10169 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
10170 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
10171 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
10172 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
10173
10174 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
10175 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
10176 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
10177 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
10178 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
10179 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
10180 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
10181 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
10182 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
10183 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
10184 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
10185 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
10186 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
10187
10188 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
10189 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
10190 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
10191 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
10192 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
10193 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
10194 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
10195 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
10196 it.</p>
10197
10198 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
10199 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
10200 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
10201 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
10202 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
10203 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
10204 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
10205
10206 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
10207 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
10208 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
10209 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
10210 and range= options.</p>
10211
10212 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
10213 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
10214 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
10215 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
10216 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
10217 to best handle this.  I've noticed
10218 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
10219 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
10220 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
10221 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
10222
10223 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
10224 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
10225 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
10226 discussions instead of only
10227 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
10228 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
10229 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
10230 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
10231 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
10232 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
10233
10234       </div>
10235       <div class="tags">
10236
10237
10238         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>.
10239
10240
10241       </div>
10242     </div>
10243     <div class="padding"></div>
10244
10245     <div class="entry">
10246       <div class="title">
10247         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
10248       </div>
10249       <div class="date">
10250          6th April 2011
10251       </div>
10252       <div class="body">
10253         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
10254 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
10255 A few days ago the project
10256 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
10257 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
10258 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
10259 into Gnash.</p>
10260
10261       </div>
10262       <div class="tags">
10263
10264
10265         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/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>.
10266
10267
10268       </div>
10269     </div>
10270     <div class="padding"></div>
10271
10272     <div class="entry">
10273       <div class="title">
10274         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html">A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</a>
10275       </div>
10276       <div class="date">
10277          3rd April 2011
10278       </div>
10279       <div class="body">
10280         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
10281 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
10282 update in English.</p>
10283
10284 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
10285 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
10286 of the British service
10287 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
10288 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
10289 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
10290 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
10291 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
10292 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
10293 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
10294 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
10295 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
10296 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
10297 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
10298 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
10299 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
10300
10301 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
10302 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
10303 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
10304 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
10305 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
10306 public infrastructure.</p>
10307
10308 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
10309 such service?</p>
10310
10311       </div>
10312       <div class="tags">
10313
10314
10315         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>.
10316
10317
10318       </div>
10319     </div>
10320     <div class="padding"></div>
10321
10322     <div class="entry">
10323       <div class="title">
10324         <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>
10325       </div>
10326       <div class="date">
10327         28th January 2011
10328       </div>
10329       <div class="body">
10330         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
10331 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
10332 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
10333 available on the Internet, and check our locally
10334 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
10335 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
10336 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
10337 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
10338 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
10339 out which security holes were present in our free software
10340 collection.</p>
10341
10342 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
10343 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
10344 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
10345 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
10346 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
10347 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
10348 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
10349 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
10350 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
10351 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
10352 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
10353 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
10354 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
10355 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
10356 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
10357 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
10358
10359 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
10360 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
10361 check out, one could look up
10362 <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
10363 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
10364 The most recent one is
10365 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
10366 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
10367 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
10368
10369 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
10370 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
10371 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
10372 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
10373 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
10374 security issues out.</p>
10375
10376 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
10377 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
10378 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
10379 RHEL is providing
10380 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
10381 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
10382 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
10383
10384 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
10385 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
10386 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
10387 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
10388 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
10389 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
10390 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
10391 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
10392 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
10393 established soon.</p>
10394
10395 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
10396 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
10397 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
10398 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
10399 for their packages.</p>
10400
10401       </div>
10402       <div class="tags">
10403
10404
10405         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>.
10406
10407
10408       </div>
10409     </div>
10410     <div class="padding"></div>
10411
10412     <div class="entry">
10413       <div class="title">
10414         <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>
10415       </div>
10416       <div class="date">
10417         23rd January 2011
10418       </div>
10419       <div class="body">
10420         <p>In the
10421 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
10422 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
10423 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
10424 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
10425 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
10426 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
10427 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
10428 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
10429 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
10430 one of my machines like this:</p>
10431
10432 <pre>
10433 loaded modules:
10434 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
10435 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
10436 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
10437 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
10438 10de:03ec pata_amd
10439 10de:03f6 sata_nv
10440 1022:1103 k8temp
10441 109e:036e bttv
10442 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
10443 11ab:4364 sky2
10444 </pre>
10445
10446 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
10447 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
10448
10449 <pre>
10450 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
10451     echo loaded pci modules:
10452     (
10453         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
10454         for address in * ; do
10455             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
10456                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
10457                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
10458                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
10459                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
10460                     echo "$id $module"
10461                 fi
10462             fi
10463         done
10464     )
10465     echo
10466 fi
10467 </pre>
10468
10469 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
10470 mappings:</p>
10471
10472 <pre>
10473 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
10474     echo loaded usb modules:
10475     (
10476         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
10477         for address in * ; do
10478             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
10479                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
10480                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
10481                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
10482                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
10483                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
10484                         echo "$id $module"
10485                     fi
10486                 fi
10487             fi
10488         done
10489     )
10490     echo
10491 fi
10492 </pre>
10493
10494 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
10495 well.</p>
10496
10497       </div>
10498       <div class="tags">
10499
10500
10501         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>.
10502
10503
10504       </div>
10505     </div>
10506     <div class="padding"></div>
10507
10508     <div class="entry">
10509       <div class="title">
10510         <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>
10511       </div>
10512       <div class="date">
10513         16th January 2011
10514       </div>
10515       <div class="body">
10516         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
10517 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
10518 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
10519 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
10520 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
10521 the Wikipedia article on
10522 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
10523 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
10524 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
10525 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
10526 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
10527 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
10528 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
10529 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
10530 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
10531 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
10532 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
10533 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
10534
10535 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
10536 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
10537 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
10538 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
10539 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
10540 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
10541 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
10542 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
10543 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
10544 from last week</a>.</p>
10545
10546 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
10547 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
10548 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
10549 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
10550 was without royalties and license terms, check out
10551 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
10552 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
10553
10554 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
10555 available from
10556 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
10557 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
10558 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
10559
10560 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
10561 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
10562 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
10563 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
10564
10565       </div>
10566       <div class="tags">
10567
10568
10569         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>.
10570
10571
10572       </div>
10573     </div>
10574     <div class="padding"></div>
10575
10576     <div class="entry">
10577       <div class="title">
10578         <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>
10579       </div>
10580       <div class="date">
10581         12th January 2011
10582       </div>
10583       <div class="body">
10584         <p>Today I discovered
10585 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
10586 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
10587 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
10588 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
10589 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
10590 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
10591 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
10592 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
10593 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
10594 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
10595 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
10596 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
10597 on the Google announcement is available from
10598 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
10599 A good read. :)</p>
10600
10601 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
10602 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
10603 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
10604 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
10605 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
10606 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
10607 browsers support H.264, and others support
10608 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
10609 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
10610 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
10611 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
10612 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
10613 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
10614 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
10615 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
10616
10617 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
10618 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
10619 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
10620 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
10621 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
10622 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
10623 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
10624
10625 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
10626 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
10627 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
10628 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
10629 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
10630 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
10631 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
10632
10633 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
10634 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
10635 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
10636 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
10637 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
10638 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
10639 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
10640
10641 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
10642 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
10643 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
10644 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
10645 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
10646 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
10647 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
10648 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
10649 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
10650 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
10651 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
10652 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
10653 I guess time will tell.</p>
10654
10655 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
10656 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
10657 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
10658
10659       </div>
10660       <div class="tags">
10661
10662
10663         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>.
10664
10665
10666       </div>
10667     </div>
10668     <div class="padding"></div>
10669
10670     <div class="entry">
10671       <div class="title">
10672         <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>
10673       </div>
10674       <div class="date">
10675         30th December 2010
10676       </div>
10677       <div class="body">
10678         <p>After trying to
10679 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
10680 Ogg Theora</a> to
10681 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
10682 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
10683 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
10684 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
10685 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
10686 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
10687 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
10688
10689 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
10690 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
10691 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
10692 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
10693 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
10694 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
10695 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
10696
10697 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
10698 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
10699
10700       </div>
10701       <div class="tags">
10702
10703
10704         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>.
10705
10706
10707       </div>
10708     </div>
10709     <div class="padding"></div>
10710
10711     <div class="entry">
10712       <div class="title">
10713         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
10714       </div>
10715       <div class="date">
10716         27th December 2010
10717       </div>
10718       <div class="body">
10719         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
10720 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
10721 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
10722 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
10723 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
10724 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
10725 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
10726 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
10727
10728 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
10729 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
10730 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
10731 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
10732 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
10733 page</a>.</p>
10734
10735 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
10736 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
10737 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
10738 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
10739 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
10740 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
10741 specification on equal terms.</p>
10742
10743 <blockquote>
10744
10745 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
10746 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
10747 open standard:</p>
10748
10749 <ul>
10750
10751 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
10752 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
10753 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
10754 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
10755
10756 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
10757 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
10758 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
10759 nominal fee.</li>
10760
10761 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
10762 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
10763 free basis.</li>
10764
10765 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
10766
10767 </ul>
10768 </blockquote>
10769
10770 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
10771 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
10772 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
10773 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
10774 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
10775 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
10776 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
10777
10778 <blockquote>
10779
10780 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
10781
10782 <ol>
10783
10784 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
10785 tilgængelig.</li>
10786
10787 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
10788 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
10789
10790 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
10791 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
10792
10793 </ol>
10794
10795 </blockquote>
10796
10797 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
10798 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
10799
10800 <blockquote>
10801
10802 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
10803
10804 <ol>
10805
10806 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
10807 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
10808
10809 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
10810 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
10811 Standard themselves;</li>
10812
10813 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
10814 any party or in any business model;</li>
10815
10816 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
10817 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
10818 parties;</li>
10819
10820 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
10821 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
10822 parties.</li>
10823
10824 </ol>
10825
10826 </blockquote>
10827
10828 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
10829 its
10830 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
10831 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
10832
10833 <blockquote>
10834 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
10835
10836 <ul>
10837
10838 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
10839   democratic:
10840
10841          <ul>
10842
10843          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
10844             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
10845             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
10846             and managed.</li>
10847
10848          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
10849             method, can be changed through input from all
10850             participants.</li>
10851
10852          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
10853             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
10854
10855          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
10856             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
10857
10858          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
10859             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
10860             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
10861
10862          </ul>
10863
10864 </li>
10865
10866 </ul>
10867
10868 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
10869 <ul>
10870
10871 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
10872   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
10873   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
10874   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
10875   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
10876
10877 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
10878   a technical or economic barriers</li>
10879
10880 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
10881   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
10882   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
10883   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
10884   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
10885   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
10886   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
10887   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
10888   intended to function.</li>
10889
10890 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
10891   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
10892   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
10893
10894 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
10895   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
10896   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
10897   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
10898   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
10899   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
10900   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
10901   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
10902
10903       <ul>
10904
10905       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
10906         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
10907         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
10908
10909       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
10910         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
10911         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
10912         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
10913
10914       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
10915         licensor</li>
10916
10917       </ul>
10918 </li>
10919
10920 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
10921   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
10922   or restricted licensing terms</li>
10923
10924 </ul>
10925
10926 </blockquote>
10927
10928 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
10929 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
10930 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
10931 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
10932 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
10933 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
10934 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
10935 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
10936 Standards.</p>
10937
10938       </div>
10939       <div class="tags">
10940
10941
10942         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>.
10943
10944
10945       </div>
10946     </div>
10947     <div class="padding"></div>
10948
10949     <div class="entry">
10950       <div class="title">
10951         <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>
10952       </div>
10953       <div class="date">
10954         25th December 2010
10955       </div>
10956       <div class="body">
10957         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
10958 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
10959
10960 <blockquote>
10961
10962 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
10963 as follows:</p>
10964
10965 <ol>
10966
10967 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
10968 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
10969 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
10970
10971 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
10972 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
10973 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
10974 parties.</li>
10975
10976 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
10977 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
10978 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
10979
10980 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
10981 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
10982
10983 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
10984
10985 </ol>
10986
10987 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
10988 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
10989 products based on the standard.</p>
10990 </blockquote>
10991
10992 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
10993 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
10994 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
10995 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
10996 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
10997 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
10998 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
10999 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
11000
11001 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
11002
11003 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
11004 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
11005 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
11006 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
11007 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
11008 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
11009 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
11010 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
11011 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
11012 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
11013 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
11014 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
11015 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
11016 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
11017
11018 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
11019
11020 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
11021 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
11022 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
11023 documentation indicating this.</p>
11024
11025 <p>According to
11026 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
11027 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
11028 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
11029 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
11030 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
11031 report is correct.</p>
11032
11033 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
11034
11035 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
11036 container format</a> and both the
11037 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
11038 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
11039 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
11040
11041 <blockquote>
11042
11043 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
11044 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
11045 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
11046 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
11047 specification compliance.
11048
11049 </blockquote>
11050
11051 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
11052 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
11053 this is the term:<p>
11054
11055 <blockquote>
11056
11057 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
11058 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
11059 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
11060 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
11061 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
11062 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
11063 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
11064 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
11065 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
11066 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
11067 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
11068 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
11069
11070 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
11071 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
11072 </blockquote>
11073
11074 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
11075 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
11076 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
11077 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
11078 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
11079
11080 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
11081
11082 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
11083 Theora format.
11084 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
11085 and
11086 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
11087 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
11088 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
11089 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
11090 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
11091 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
11092 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
11093 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
11094
11095 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
11096
11097 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
11098
11099 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
11100
11101 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
11102 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
11103 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
11104 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
11105 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
11106 this.</p>
11107
11108 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
11109 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
11110
11111       </div>
11112       <div class="tags">
11113
11114
11115         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>.
11116
11117
11118       </div>
11119     </div>
11120     <div class="padding"></div>
11121
11122     <div class="entry">
11123       <div class="title">
11124         <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>
11125       </div>
11126       <div class="date">
11127         25th December 2010
11128       </div>
11129       <div class="body">
11130         <p>A few days ago
11131 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
11132 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
11133 2.0 of
11134 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
11135 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
11136 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
11137 Nothing very surprising there, given
11138 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
11139 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
11140 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
11141 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
11142 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
11143 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
11144 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
11145 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
11146 standard definition from its content.</p>
11147
11148 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
11149 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
11150 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
11151 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
11152 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
11153 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
11154 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
11155 background information about that story is available in
11156 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
11157 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
11158
11159 <blockquote>
11160 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
11161 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
11162 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
11163
11164 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
11165
11166 <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>
11167
11168 <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>
11169
11170 <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>
11171
11172 <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>
11173
11174 <p>
11175 <ul>
11176 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
11177 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
11178 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
11179 </ul>
11180 </p>
11181
11182 <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>
11183
11184 <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>
11185
11186 <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>
11187
11188 <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>
11189
11190 <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>
11191
11192
11193 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
11194 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
11195 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
11196 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
11197 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
11198 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
11199
11200 </p>
11201
11202 <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>
11203
11204 <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>
11205
11206 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
11207
11208 <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>
11209
11210 <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>
11211
11212 <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>
11213
11214 <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>
11215
11216 <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>
11217
11218 <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>
11219
11220 <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>
11221
11222 <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>
11223
11224 <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>
11225
11226 <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>
11227
11228 <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>
11229
11230 <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>
11231
11232 <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>
11233
11234 <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>
11235
11236 <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>
11237
11238 <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>
11239
11240 <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>
11241
11242 <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>
11243
11244 <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>
11245
11246 <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>
11247
11248 <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>
11249
11250 <p>On security:</p>
11251
11252 <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>
11253
11254 <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>
11255
11256 <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>
11257
11258 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
11259
11260 <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>
11261
11262 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
11263
11264 <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>
11265
11266 <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>
11267
11268 <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>
11269
11270 <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>
11271
11272 <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>
11273
11274 <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>
11275
11276 <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>
11277
11278 <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>
11279
11280 <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>
11281
11282 <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>
11283
11284 <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>
11285
11286 <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>
11287
11288 <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>
11289
11290 <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>
11291
11292 <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>
11293
11294 <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>
11295
11296 <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>
11297
11298 <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>
11299
11300 <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>
11301
11302 <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>
11303
11304 <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>
11305
11306 <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>
11307
11308 <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>
11309
11310 <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>
11311
11312 <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>
11313
11314 <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>
11315
11316 <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>
11317
11318 <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>
11319
11320 <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>
11321
11322 <p>Cordially,<br>
11323 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
11324 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
11325 </blockquote>
11326
11327       </div>
11328       <div class="tags">
11329
11330
11331         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>.
11332
11333
11334       </div>
11335     </div>
11336     <div class="padding"></div>
11337
11338     <div class="entry">
11339       <div class="title">
11340         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
11341       </div>
11342       <div class="date">
11343         25th December 2010
11344       </div>
11345       <div class="body">
11346         <p>Half a year ago I
11347 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
11348 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
11349 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
11350 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
11351
11352 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
11353 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
11354 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
11355 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
11356 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
11357 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
11358 got such a great test tool available.</p>
11359
11360       </div>
11361       <div class="tags">
11362
11363
11364         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>.
11365
11366
11367       </div>
11368     </div>
11369     <div class="padding"></div>
11370
11371     <div class="entry">
11372       <div class="title">
11373         <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>
11374       </div>
11375       <div class="date">
11376         22nd December 2010
11377       </div>
11378       <div class="body">
11379         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
11380 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
11381 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
11382 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
11383 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
11384 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
11385 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
11386 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
11387 university.</p>
11388
11389 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
11390 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
11391 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
11392 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
11393 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
11394 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
11395 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
11396 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
11397
11398 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
11399 I perform on a new model.</p>
11400
11401 <ul>
11402
11403 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
11404 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
11405 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
11406
11407 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
11408 installation, X.org is working.</li>
11409
11410 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
11411 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
11412 reported by the program.</li>
11413
11414 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
11415 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
11416 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
11417 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
11418 normally test this by playing
11419 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
11420 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
11421
11422 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
11423 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
11424
11425 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
11426 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
11427
11428 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
11429 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
11430
11431 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
11432 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
11433 few.</li>
11434
11435 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
11436 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
11437 notice this.</li>
11438
11439 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
11440 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
11441 resume.</li>
11442
11443 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
11444 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
11445 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
11446 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
11447 not.</li>
11448
11449 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
11450 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
11451 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
11452 existence.</li>
11453
11454 </ul>
11455
11456 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
11457 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
11458 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
11459 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
11460 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
11461 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
11462 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
11463 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
11464
11465       </div>
11466       <div class="tags">
11467
11468
11469         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>.
11470
11471
11472       </div>
11473     </div>
11474     <div class="padding"></div>
11475
11476     <div class="entry">
11477       <div class="title">
11478         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
11479       </div>
11480       <div class="date">
11481         11th December 2010
11482       </div>
11483       <div class="body">
11484         <p>As I continue to explore
11485 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
11486 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
11487 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
11488
11489 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
11490 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
11491 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
11492 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
11493 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
11494 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
11495 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
11496 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
11497 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
11498 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
11499 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
11500 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
11501 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
11502 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
11503 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
11504 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
11505 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
11506 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
11507 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
11508 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
11509
11510 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
11511 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
11512 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
11513 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
11514 If the Skolelinux foundation
11515 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
11516 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
11517 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
11518 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
11519 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
11520 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
11521 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
11522 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
11523
11524 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
11525 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
11526 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
11527 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
11528 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
11529 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
11530 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
11531 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
11532 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
11533 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
11534 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
11535 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
11536 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
11537 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
11538 currencies.</p>
11539
11540 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
11541 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
11542 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
11543 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
11544 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
11545 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
11546 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
11547 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
11548 BitCoins.  Check out
11549 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
11550 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
11551 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
11552 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
11553 yet.</p>
11554
11555 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
11556 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
11557 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
11558 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
11559 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
11560
11561       </div>
11562       <div class="tags">
11563
11564
11565         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>.
11566
11567
11568       </div>
11569     </div>
11570     <div class="padding"></div>
11571
11572     <div class="entry">
11573       <div class="title">
11574         <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>
11575       </div>
11576       <div class="date">
11577         10th December 2010
11578       </div>
11579       <div class="body">
11580         <p>With this weeks lawless
11581 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
11582 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
11583 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
11584 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
11585 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
11586 A blog post from
11587 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
11588 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
11589 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
11590 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
11591 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
11592 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
11593 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
11594
11595 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
11596 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
11597 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
11598 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
11599 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
11600 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
11601 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
11602 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
11603 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
11604 Debian</a> soon.</p>
11605
11606 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
11607 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
11608 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
11609 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
11610 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
11611 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
11612 you can even get
11613 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
11614 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
11615 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
11616 on the current exchange rates.</p>
11617
11618 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
11619 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
11620 donations to the address
11621 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
11622
11623       </div>
11624       <div class="tags">
11625
11626
11627         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>.
11628
11629
11630       </div>
11631     </div>
11632     <div class="padding"></div>
11633
11634     <div class="entry">
11635       <div class="title">
11636         <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>
11637       </div>
11638       <div class="date">
11639          9th December 2010
11640       </div>
11641       <div class="body">
11642         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
11643 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
11644 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
11645 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
11646 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
11647 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
11648 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
11649 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
11650 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
11651 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
11652 operational.</p>
11653
11654 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
11655 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
11656 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
11657 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
11658 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
11659 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
11660 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
11661
11662       </div>
11663       <div class="tags">
11664
11665
11666         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>.
11667
11668
11669       </div>
11670     </div>
11671     <div class="padding"></div>
11672
11673     <div class="entry">
11674       <div class="title">
11675         <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>
11676       </div>
11677       <div class="date">
11678         29th November 2010
11679       </div>
11680       <div class="body">
11681         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
11682 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
11683 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
11684 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
11685 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
11686 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
11687
11688 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
11689 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
11690 will hold its
11691 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
11692 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
11693 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
11694 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
11695 vote this year.</p>
11696
11697       </div>
11698       <div class="tags">
11699
11700
11701         Tags: <a href="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>.
11702
11703
11704       </div>
11705     </div>
11706     <div class="padding"></div>
11707
11708     <div class="entry">
11709       <div class="title">
11710         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
11711       </div>
11712       <div class="date">
11713         27th November 2010
11714       </div>
11715       <div class="body">
11716         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
11717 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
11718 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
11719 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
11720 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
11721 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
11722 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
11723 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
11724
11725 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
11726 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
11727 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
11728 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
11729 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
11730 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
11731 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
11732 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
11733 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
11734 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
11735 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
11736
11737 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
11738 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
11739 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
11740 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
11741 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
11742 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
11743 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
11744 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
11745 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
11746 what is going on.</p>
11747
11748       </div>
11749       <div class="tags">
11750
11751
11752         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>.
11753
11754
11755       </div>
11756     </div>
11757     <div class="padding"></div>
11758
11759     <div class="entry">
11760       <div class="title">
11761         <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>
11762       </div>
11763       <div class="date">
11764         22nd November 2010
11765       </div>
11766       <div class="body">
11767         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
11768 upgrade testing of the
11769 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
11770 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
11771 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
11772 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
11773
11774 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
11775
11776 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
11777
11778 <blockquote><p>
11779   apache2.2-bin
11780   aptdaemon
11781   baobab
11782   binfmt-support
11783   browser-plugin-gnash
11784   cheese-common
11785   cli-common
11786   cups-pk-helper
11787   dmz-cursor-theme
11788   empathy
11789   empathy-common
11790   freedesktop-sound-theme
11791   freeglut3
11792   gconf-defaults-service
11793   gdm-themes
11794   gedit-plugins
11795   geoclue
11796   geoclue-hostip
11797   geoclue-localnet
11798   geoclue-manual
11799   geoclue-yahoo
11800   gnash
11801   gnash-common
11802   gnome
11803   gnome-backgrounds
11804   gnome-cards-data
11805   gnome-codec-install
11806   gnome-core
11807   gnome-desktop-environment
11808   gnome-disk-utility
11809   gnome-screenshot
11810   gnome-search-tool
11811   gnome-session-canberra
11812   gnome-system-log
11813   gnome-themes-extras
11814   gnome-themes-more
11815   gnome-user-share
11816   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
11817   gstreamer0.10-tools
11818   gtk2-engines
11819   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
11820   gtk2-engines-smooth
11821   hamster-applet
11822   libapache2-mod-dnssd
11823   libapr1
11824   libaprutil1
11825   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
11826   libaprutil1-ldap
11827   libart2.0-cil
11828   libboost-date-time1.42.0
11829   libboost-python1.42.0
11830   libboost-thread1.42.0
11831   libchamplain-0.4-0
11832   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
11833   libcheese-gtk18
11834   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
11835   libcryptui0
11836   libdiscid0
11837   libelf1
11838   libepc-1.0-2
11839   libepc-common
11840   libepc-ui-1.0-2
11841   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
11842   libfreerdp0
11843   libgconf2.0-cil
11844   libgdata-common
11845   libgdata7
11846   libgdu-gtk0
11847   libgee2
11848   libgeoclue0
11849   libgexiv2-0
11850   libgif4
11851   libglade2.0-cil
11852   libglib2.0-cil
11853   libgmime2.4-cil
11854   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
11855   libgnome2.24-cil
11856   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
11857   libgpod-common
11858   libgpod4
11859   libgtk2.0-cil
11860   libgtkglext1
11861   libgtksourceview2.0-common
11862   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
11863   libmono-addins0.2-cil
11864   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
11865   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
11866   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
11867   libmono-posix2.0-cil
11868   libmono-security2.0-cil
11869   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
11870   libmono-system2.0-cil
11871   libmtp8
11872   libmusicbrainz3-6
11873   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
11874   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
11875   libopal3.6.8
11876   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
11877   libpt2.6.7
11878   libpython2.6
11879   librpm1
11880   librpmio1
11881   libsdl1.2debian
11882   libsrtp0
11883   libssh-4
11884   libtelepathy-farsight0
11885   libtelepathy-glib0
11886   libtidy-0.99-0
11887   media-player-info
11888   mesa-utils
11889   mono-2.0-gac
11890   mono-gac
11891   mono-runtime
11892   nautilus-sendto
11893   nautilus-sendto-empathy
11894   p7zip-full
11895   pkg-config
11896   python-aptdaemon
11897   python-aptdaemon-gtk
11898   python-axiom
11899   python-beautifulsoup
11900   python-bugbuddy
11901   python-clientform
11902   python-coherence
11903   python-configobj
11904   python-crypto
11905   python-cupshelpers
11906   python-elementtree
11907   python-epsilon
11908   python-evolution
11909   python-feedparser
11910   python-gdata
11911   python-gdbm
11912   python-gst0.10
11913   python-gtkglext1
11914   python-gtksourceview2
11915   python-httplib2
11916   python-louie
11917   python-mako
11918   python-markupsafe
11919   python-mechanize
11920   python-nevow
11921   python-notify
11922   python-opengl
11923   python-openssl
11924   python-pam
11925   python-pkg-resources
11926   python-pyasn1
11927   python-pysqlite2
11928   python-rdflib
11929   python-serial
11930   python-tagpy
11931   python-twisted-bin
11932   python-twisted-conch
11933   python-twisted-core
11934   python-twisted-web
11935   python-utidylib
11936   python-webkit
11937   python-xdg
11938   python-zope.interface
11939   remmina
11940   remmina-plugin-data
11941   remmina-plugin-rdp
11942   remmina-plugin-vnc
11943   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
11944   rhythmbox-plugins
11945   rpm-common
11946   rpm2cpio
11947   seahorse-plugins
11948   shotwell
11949   software-center
11950   system-config-printer-udev
11951   telepathy-gabble
11952   telepathy-mission-control-5
11953   telepathy-salut
11954   tomboy
11955   totem
11956   totem-coherence
11957   totem-mozilla
11958   totem-plugins
11959   transmission-common
11960   xdg-user-dirs
11961   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
11962   xserver-xephyr
11963 </p></blockquote>
11964
11965 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
11966
11967 <blockquote><p>
11968   cheese
11969   ekiga
11970   eog
11971   epiphany-extensions
11972   evolution-exchange
11973   fast-user-switch-applet
11974   file-roller
11975   gcalctool
11976   gconf-editor
11977   gdm
11978   gedit
11979   gedit-common
11980   gnome-games
11981   gnome-games-data
11982   gnome-nettool
11983   gnome-system-tools
11984   gnome-themes
11985   gnuchess
11986   gucharmap
11987   guile-1.8-libs
11988   libavahi-ui0
11989   libdmx1
11990   libgalago3
11991   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
11992   libgtksourceview2.0-0
11993   liblircclient0
11994   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
11995   libspeexdsp1
11996   libsvga1
11997   rhythmbox
11998   seahorse
11999   sound-juicer
12000   system-config-printer
12001   totem-common
12002   transmission-gtk
12003   vinagre
12004   vino
12005 </p></blockquote>
12006
12007 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12008
12009 <blockquote><p>
12010   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
12011 </p></blockquote>
12012
12013 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12014
12015 <blockquote><p>
12016 [nothing]
12017 </p></blockquote>
12018
12019 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
12020
12021 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12022
12023 <blockquote><p>
12024   ksmserver
12025 </p></blockquote>
12026
12027 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12028
12029 <blockquote><p>
12030   kwin
12031   network-manager-kde
12032 </p></blockquote>
12033
12034 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12035
12036 <blockquote><p>
12037   arts
12038   dolphin
12039   freespacenotifier
12040   google-gadgets-gst
12041   google-gadgets-xul
12042   kappfinder
12043   kcalc
12044   kcharselect
12045   kde-core
12046   kde-plasma-desktop
12047   kde-standard
12048   kde-window-manager
12049   kdeartwork
12050   kdeartwork-emoticons
12051   kdeartwork-style
12052   kdeartwork-theme-icon
12053   kdebase
12054   kdebase-apps
12055   kdebase-workspace
12056   kdebase-workspace-bin
12057   kdebase-workspace-data
12058   kdeeject
12059   kdelibs
12060   kdeplasma-addons
12061   kdeutils
12062   kdewallpapers
12063   kdf
12064   kfloppy
12065   kgpg
12066   khelpcenter4
12067   kinfocenter
12068   konq-plugins-l10n
12069   konqueror-nsplugins
12070   kscreensaver
12071   kscreensaver-xsavers
12072   ktimer
12073   kwrite
12074   libgle3
12075   libkde4-ruby1.8
12076   libkonq5
12077   libkonq5-templates
12078   libnetpbm10
12079   libplasma-ruby
12080   libplasma-ruby1.8
12081   libqt4-ruby1.8
12082   marble-data
12083   marble-plugins
12084   netpbm
12085   nuvola-icon-theme
12086   plasma-dataengines-workspace
12087   plasma-desktop
12088   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
12089   plasma-runners-addons
12090   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
12091   plasma-scriptengine-python
12092   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
12093   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
12094   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
12095   plasma-scriptengines
12096   plasma-wallpapers-addons
12097   plasma-widget-folderview
12098   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
12099   ruby
12100   sweeper
12101   update-notifier-kde
12102   xscreensaver-data-extra
12103   xscreensaver-gl
12104   xscreensaver-gl-extra
12105   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
12106 </p></blockquote>
12107
12108 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12109
12110 <blockquote><p>
12111   ark
12112   google-gadgets-common
12113   google-gadgets-qt
12114   htdig
12115   kate
12116   kdebase-bin
12117   kdebase-data
12118   kdepasswd
12119   kfind
12120   klipper
12121   konq-plugins
12122   konqueror
12123   ksysguard
12124   ksysguardd
12125   libarchive1
12126   libcln6
12127   libeet1
12128   libeina-svn-06
12129   libggadget-1.0-0b
12130   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
12131   libgps19
12132   libkdecorations4
12133   libkephal4
12134   libkonq4
12135   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
12136   libkscreensaver5
12137   libksgrd4
12138   libksignalplotter4
12139   libkunitconversion4
12140   libkwineffects1a
12141   libmarblewidget4
12142   libntrack-qt4-1
12143   libntrack0
12144   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
12145   libplasmaclock4a
12146   libplasmagenericshell4
12147   libprocesscore4a
12148   libprocessui4a
12149   libqalculate5
12150   libqedje0a
12151   libqtruby4shared2
12152   libqzion0a
12153   libruby1.8
12154   libscim8c2a
12155   libsmokekdecore4-3
12156   libsmokekdeui4-3
12157   libsmokekfile3
12158   libsmokekhtml3
12159   libsmokekio3
12160   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
12161   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
12162   libsmokekparts3
12163   libsmokektexteditor3
12164   libsmokekutils3
12165   libsmokenepomuk3
12166   libsmokephonon3
12167   libsmokeplasma3
12168   libsmokeqtcore4-3
12169   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
12170   libsmokeqtgui4-3
12171   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
12172   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
12173   libsmokeqtscript4-3
12174   libsmokeqtsql4-3
12175   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
12176   libsmokeqttest4-3
12177   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
12178   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
12179   libsmokeqtxml4-3
12180   libsmokesolid3
12181   libsmokesoprano3
12182   libtaskmanager4a
12183   libtidy-0.99-0
12184   libweather-ion4a
12185   libxklavier16
12186   libxxf86misc1
12187   okteta
12188   oxygencursors
12189   plasma-dataengines-addons
12190   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
12191   plasma-widget-lancelot
12192   plasma-widgets-addons
12193   plasma-widgets-workspace
12194   polkit-kde-1
12195   ruby1.8
12196   systemsettings
12197   update-notifier-common
12198 </p></blockquote>
12199
12200 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
12201 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
12202 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
12203 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
12204
12205       </div>
12206       <div class="tags">
12207
12208
12209         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>.
12210
12211
12212       </div>
12213     </div>
12214     <div class="padding"></div>
12215
12216     <div class="entry">
12217       <div class="title">
12218         <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>
12219       </div>
12220       <div class="date">
12221         22nd November 2010
12222       </div>
12223       <div class="body">
12224         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
12225 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
12226 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
12227 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
12228 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
12229 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
12230 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
12231 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
12232 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
12233
12234 <p>I found
12235 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
12236 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
12237 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
12238 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
12239 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
12240 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
12241
12242 <pre>
12243 #!/bin/sh
12244
12245 # Based on
12246 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
12247
12248 set -e
12249 set -x
12250
12251 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
12252     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
12253     exit 1
12254 else
12255     host="$1"
12256 fi
12257
12258 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
12259     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
12260     exit 1
12261 fi
12262
12263 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
12264 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12265 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12266 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
12267
12268 img=$host.img
12269 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
12270 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
12271
12272 parted $img mklabel msdos
12273 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
12274 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
12275 parted $img set 1 boot on
12276
12277 modprobe dm-mod
12278 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
12279 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
12280
12281 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
12282 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
12283 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
12284
12285 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
12286 losetup -d /dev/loop0
12287 </pre>
12288
12289 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
12290 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
12291
12292 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
12293 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
12294 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
12295 seem to work just fine.</p>
12296
12297       </div>
12298       <div class="tags">
12299
12300
12301         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>.
12302
12303
12304       </div>
12305     </div>
12306     <div class="padding"></div>
12307
12308     <div class="entry">
12309       <div class="title">
12310         <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>
12311       </div>
12312       <div class="date">
12313         20th November 2010
12314       </div>
12315       <div class="body">
12316         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
12317 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
12318 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
12319 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
12320
12321 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
12322 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
12323 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
12324
12325 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
12326
12327 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12328
12329 <blockquote><p>
12330   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
12331   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
12332   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
12333   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
12334   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
12335   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
12336   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
12337   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
12338   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
12339   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
12340   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
12341   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
12342   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
12343   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
12344   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
12345   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
12346   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
12347   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
12348   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
12349   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
12350   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
12351   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
12352   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
12353   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
12354   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
12355   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
12356   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
12357   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
12358   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
12359   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
12360   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
12361   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
12362   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
12363   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
12364   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
12365   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
12366   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
12367   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
12368   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
12369   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
12370   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
12371   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
12372   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
12373   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
12374   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
12375   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
12376   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
12377   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
12378   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
12379   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
12380   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
12381   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
12382   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
12383   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
12384   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
12385   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
12386   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
12387   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
12388   zip
12389 </p></blockquote>
12390
12391 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
12392
12393 <blockquote><p>
12394   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
12395   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
12396   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
12397   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
12398   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
12399   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
12400   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
12401   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
12402   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
12403   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
12404   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
12405   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
12406   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
12407   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
12408   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
12409   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
12410   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
12411   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
12412   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
12413   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
12414   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
12415   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
12416   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
12417   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
12418   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
12419   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
12420   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
12421   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
12422   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
12423 </p></blockquote>
12424
12425 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12426
12427 <blockquote><p>
12428   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
12429 </p></blockquote>
12430
12431 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12432
12433 <blockquote><p>
12434 [nothing]
12435 </p></blockquote>
12436
12437 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
12438
12439 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12440
12441 <blockquote><p>
12442   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
12443   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
12444   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
12445   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
12446   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
12447   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
12448   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
12449   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
12450   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
12451   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
12452   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
12453   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
12454   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
12455   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
12456   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
12457   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
12458   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
12459   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
12460   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
12461   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
12462   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
12463   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
12464   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
12465   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
12466   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
12467   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
12468   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
12469   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
12470   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
12471   ttf-sazanami-gothic
12472 </p></blockquote>
12473
12474 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12475
12476 <blockquote><p>
12477   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
12478   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
12479   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
12480   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
12481   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
12482   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
12483   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
12484   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
12485   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
12486   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
12487   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
12488   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
12489   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
12490   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
12491   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
12492   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
12493   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
12494   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
12495   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
12496   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
12497   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
12498   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
12499   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
12500   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
12501   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
12502   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
12503   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
12504   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
12505   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
12506   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
12507   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
12508   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
12509   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
12510 </p></blockquote>
12511
12512 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12513
12514 <blockquote><p>
12515   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
12516   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
12517   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
12518   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
12519   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
12520   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
12521   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
12522 </p></blockquote>
12523
12524 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12525
12526 <blockquote><p>
12527   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
12528 </p></blockquote>
12529
12530       </div>
12531       <div class="tags">
12532
12533
12534         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>.
12535
12536
12537       </div>
12538     </div>
12539     <div class="padding"></div>
12540
12541     <div class="entry">
12542       <div class="title">
12543         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
12544       </div>
12545       <div class="date">
12546         20th November 2010
12547       </div>
12548       <div class="body">
12549         <p>Answering
12550 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
12551 call from the Gnash project</a> for
12552 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
12553 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
12554 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
12555 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
12556 releases out more often.</p>
12557
12558 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
12559 I have considered setting up a <a
12560 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
12561 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
12562 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
12563 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
12564 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
12565 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
12566 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
12567 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
12568 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
12569 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
12570 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
12571 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
12572
12573       </div>
12574       <div class="tags">
12575
12576
12577         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>.
12578
12579
12580       </div>
12581     </div>
12582     <div class="padding"></div>
12583
12584     <div class="entry">
12585       <div class="title">
12586         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
12587       </div>
12588       <div class="date">
12589          9th November 2010
12590       </div>
12591       <div class="body">
12592         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
12593
12594 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
12595 3D linked in from
12596 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
12597 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
12598
12599       </div>
12600       <div class="tags">
12601
12602
12603         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>.
12604
12605
12606       </div>
12607     </div>
12608     <div class="padding"></div>
12609
12610     <div class="entry">
12611       <div class="title">
12612         <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>
12613       </div>
12614       <div class="date">
12615          7th November 2010
12616       </div>
12617       <div class="body">
12618         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
12619 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
12620 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
12621 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
12622 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
12623 working using this DVD.</p>
12624
12625 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
12626 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
12627 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
12628 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
12629 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
12630 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
12631 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
12632
12633 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
12634 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
12635 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
12636 Debian archive.</p>
12637
12638 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
12639 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
12640 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
12641 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
12642 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
12643 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
12644 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
12645 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
12646 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
12647 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
12648 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
12649 free X driver should work.</p>
12650
12651 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
12652 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
12653 DVD more useful again.</p>
12654
12655       </div>
12656       <div class="tags">
12657
12658
12659         Tags: <a href="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>.
12660
12661
12662       </div>
12663     </div>
12664     <div class="padding"></div>
12665
12666     <div class="entry">
12667       <div class="title">
12668         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
12669       </div>
12670       <div class="date">
12671         24th October 2010
12672       </div>
12673       <div class="body">
12674         <p>Some updates.</p>
12675
12676 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
12677 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
12678 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
12679 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
12680 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
12681 :)</p>
12682
12683 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
12684 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
12685 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
12686 It is called
12687 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
12688 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
12689 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
12690 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
12691 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
12692 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
12693
12694 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
12695 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
12696 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
12697 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
12698 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
12699 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
12700 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
12701 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
12702 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
12703 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
12704
12705       </div>
12706       <div class="tags">
12707
12708
12709         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>.
12710
12711
12712       </div>
12713     </div>
12714     <div class="padding"></div>
12715
12716     <div class="entry">
12717       <div class="title">
12718         <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>
12719       </div>
12720       <div class="date">
12721         19th October 2010
12722       </div>
12723       <div class="body">
12724         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
12725 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
12726 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
12727 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
12728 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
12729 AVM2 flash files.</p>
12730
12731 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
12732 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
12733 following text:</P>
12734
12735 <p><blockquote>
12736
12737   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
12738   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
12739
12740   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
12741
12742   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
12743
12744   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
12745   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
12746   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
12747   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
12748   days. The project web page is available from
12749   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
12750   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
12751   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
12752
12753   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
12754   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
12755   to get this to happen.</p>
12756
12757   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
12758   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
12759
12760 </blockquote></p>
12761
12762 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
12763 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
12764 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
12765 :)</p>
12766
12767       </div>
12768       <div class="tags">
12769
12770
12771         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>.
12772
12773
12774       </div>
12775     </div>
12776     <div class="padding"></div>
12777
12778     <div class="entry">
12779       <div class="title">
12780         <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>
12781       </div>
12782       <div class="date">
12783          9th October 2010
12784       </div>
12785       <div class="body">
12786         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
12787 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
12788 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
12789 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
12790 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
12791 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
12792 robots.</p>
12793
12794 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
12795 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
12796 a few less important features too.</p>
12797
12798 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
12799 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
12800 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
12801 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
12802
12803 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
12804 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
12805 source or binary package:</p>
12806
12807 <p><ul>
12808 <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>
12809 <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>
12810 <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>
12811 </ul></p>
12812
12813 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
12814 please let me know.</p>
12815
12816       </div>
12817       <div class="tags">
12818
12819
12820         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>.
12821
12822
12823       </div>
12824     </div>
12825     <div class="padding"></div>
12826
12827     <div class="entry">
12828       <div class="title">
12829         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
12830       </div>
12831       <div class="date">
12832          3rd October 2010
12833       </div>
12834       <div class="body">
12835         <p><ul>
12836
12837 <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
12838 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
12839
12840 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
12841 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
12842 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
12843
12844 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
12845 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
12846 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
12847 simple setup.
12848
12849 </ul></p>
12850
12851       </div>
12852       <div class="tags">
12853
12854
12855         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>.
12856
12857
12858       </div>
12859     </div>
12860     <div class="padding"></div>
12861
12862     <div class="entry">
12863       <div class="title">
12864         <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>
12865       </div>
12866       <div class="date">
12867          9th September 2010
12868       </div>
12869       <div class="body">
12870         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
12871 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
12872 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
12873 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
12874 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
12875 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
12876 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
12877 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
12878 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
12879
12880 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
12881 written:</p>
12882
12883 <blockquote>
12884 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
12885 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
12886 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
12887 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
12888 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
12889
12890 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
12891 standard.</p>
12892 </blockquote>
12893
12894 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
12895 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
12896 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
12897 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
12898
12899 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
12900 read
12901 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
12902 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
12903 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
12904 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
12905 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
12906 the issue.  The solution is to support the
12907 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
12908 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
12909 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
12910
12911       </div>
12912       <div class="tags">
12913
12914
12915         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>.
12916
12917
12918       </div>
12919     </div>
12920     <div class="padding"></div>
12921
12922     <div class="entry">
12923       <div class="title">
12924         <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>
12925       </div>
12926       <div class="date">
12927          4th September 2010
12928       </div>
12929       <div class="body">
12930         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
12931 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
12932 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
12933 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
12934 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
12935 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
12936 installed.</p>
12937
12938 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
12939 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
12940 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
12941 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
12942 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
12943 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
12944 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
12945 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
12946 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
12947
12948 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
12949 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
12950 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
12951 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
12952 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
12953 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
12954 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
12955 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
12956 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
12957 pages they want to visit.</p>
12958
12959 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
12960 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
12961 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
12962 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
12963 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
12964 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
12965 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
12966 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
12967 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
12968 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
12969 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
12970
12971       </div>
12972       <div class="tags">
12973
12974
12975         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>.
12976
12977
12978       </div>
12979     </div>
12980     <div class="padding"></div>
12981
12982     <div class="entry">
12983       <div class="title">
12984         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_first_perl_GUI_application___controlling_a_Spykee_robot.html">My first perl GUI application - controlling a Spykee robot</a>
12985       </div>
12986       <div class="date">
12987          1st September 2010
12988       </div>
12989       <div class="body">
12990         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
12991 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
12992 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
12993 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
12994 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
12995 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
12996 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
12997 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
12998 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
12999 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
13000 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
13001 drive around.</p>
13002
13003 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
13004 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
13005
13006 <p><pre>
13007 use Spykee;
13008 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
13009 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
13010 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
13011 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
13012 $spykee->left();
13013 sleep 2;
13014 $spykee->right();
13015 sleep 2;
13016 $spykee->forward();
13017 sleep 2;
13018 $spykee->back();
13019 sleep 2;
13020 $spykee->stop();
13021 </pre></p>
13022
13023 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
13024 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
13025 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
13026 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
13027 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
13028 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
13029 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
13030 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
13031 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
13032 going. :).</p>
13033
13034 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
13035 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
13036 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
13037 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
13038
13039       </div>
13040       <div class="tags">
13041
13042
13043         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>.
13044
13045
13046       </div>
13047     </div>
13048     <div class="padding"></div>
13049
13050     <div class="entry">
13051       <div class="title">
13052         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
13053       </div>
13054       <div class="date">
13055         30th August 2010
13056       </div>
13057       <div class="body">
13058         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
13059 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
13060 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
13061 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
13062 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
13063 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
13064 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
13065
13066 <pre>
13067 % ln foo bar
13068 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
13069 %
13070 </pre>
13071
13072 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
13073 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
13074 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
13075 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
13076 nevertheless. :)</p>
13077
13078 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
13079 git from
13080 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
13081
13082       </div>
13083       <div class="tags">
13084
13085
13086         Tags: <a href="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>.
13087
13088
13089       </div>
13090     </div>
13091     <div class="padding"></div>
13092
13093     <div class="entry">
13094       <div class="title">
13095         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
13096       </div>
13097       <div class="date">
13098         26th August 2010
13099       </div>
13100       <div class="body">
13101         <p>My file system sematics program
13102 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
13103 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
13104 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
13105 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
13106 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
13107 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
13108 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
13109 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
13110 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
13111 script:</p>
13112
13113 <pre>
13114 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
13115   mode_t retval = 0;
13116   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
13117   if (-1 != fd) {
13118     unlink(name);
13119     struct stat statbuf;
13120     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
13121       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
13122     }
13123     close(fd);
13124   }
13125   return retval;
13126 }
13127
13128 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
13129 int test_umask(void) {
13130   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
13131
13132   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
13133   mode_t newmode;
13134   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
13135     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
13136            newmode);
13137   }
13138   umask(007);
13139   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
13140     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
13141            newmode);
13142   }
13143
13144   umask (orig_umask);
13145   return 0;
13146 }
13147
13148 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
13149   [...]
13150   test_umask();
13151   return 0;
13152 }
13153 </pre>
13154
13155 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
13156
13157 <pre>
13158 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
13159 info: testing symlink creation
13160 info: testing subdirectory creation
13161 info: testing fcntl locking
13162   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
13163   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
13164   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
13165   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
13166   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
13167   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
13168 info: testing umask effect on file creation
13169 </pre>
13170
13171 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
13172 result:</p>
13173
13174 <pre>
13175 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
13176 info: testing symlink creation
13177 info: testing subdirectory creation
13178 info: testing fcntl locking
13179   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
13180   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
13181   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
13182   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
13183   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
13184   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
13185 info: testing umask effect on file creation
13186   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
13187   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
13188 </pre>
13189
13190 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
13191 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
13192 directory.</p>
13193
13194 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
13195 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
13196
13197 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
13198 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
13199 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
13200
13201       </div>
13202       <div class="tags">
13203
13204
13205         Tags: <a href="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>.
13206
13207
13208       </div>
13209     </div>
13210     <div class="padding"></div>
13211
13212     <div class="entry">
13213       <div class="title">
13214         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
13215       </div>
13216       <div class="date">
13217         15th August 2010
13218       </div>
13219       <div class="body">
13220         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
13221 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
13222 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
13223 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
13224 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
13225 long time.</p>
13226
13227       </div>
13228       <div class="tags">
13229
13230
13231         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>.
13232
13233
13234       </div>
13235     </div>
13236     <div class="padding"></div>
13237
13238     <div class="entry">
13239       <div class="title">
13240         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
13241       </div>
13242       <div class="date">
13243          9th August 2010
13244       </div>
13245       <div class="body">
13246         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
13247 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
13248 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
13249 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
13250 generated configuration.</p>
13251
13252 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
13253 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
13254 without any manual configuration.</p>
13255
13256 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
13257 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
13258 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
13259 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
13260 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
13261 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
13262 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
13263 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
13264 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
13265 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
13266 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
13267 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
13268 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
13269 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
13270 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
13271 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
13272 use.</p>
13273
13274 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
13275 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
13276 working properly out of the box:</p>
13277
13278 <ul>
13279 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
13280 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
13281 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
13282 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
13283 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
13284 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
13285 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
13286 </ul>
13287
13288 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
13289
13290 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
13291 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
13292 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
13293 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
13294 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
13295
13296 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
13297 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
13298 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
13299 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
13300 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
13301 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
13302 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
13303 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
13304
13305 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
13306 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
13307 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
13308 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
13309 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
13310 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
13311 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
13312 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
13313 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
13314 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
13315 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
13316 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
13317 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
13318 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
13319 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
13320 current DNS domain is used.</p>
13321
13322 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
13323 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
13324 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
13325 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
13326 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
13327 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
13328 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
13329 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
13330 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
13331 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
13332 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
13333 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
13334 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
13335
13336 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
13337 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
13338 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
13339 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
13340 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
13341 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
13342 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
13343 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
13344 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
13345 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
13346 do for now. :)</p>
13347
13348 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
13349 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
13350 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
13351 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
13352 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
13353 yet.</p>
13354
13355 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
13356 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13357
13358 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
13359 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
13360 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
13361 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
13362
13363       </div>
13364       <div class="tags">
13365
13366
13367         Tags: <a href="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>.
13368
13369
13370       </div>
13371     </div>
13372     <div class="padding"></div>
13373
13374     <div class="entry">
13375       <div class="title">
13376         <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>
13377       </div>
13378       <div class="date">
13379          8th August 2010
13380       </div>
13381       <div class="body">
13382         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
13383 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
13384 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
13385 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
13386 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
13387 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
13388 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
13389
13390 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
13391 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
13392 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
13393 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
13394 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
13395 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
13396 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
13397
13398 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
13399 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
13400 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
13401 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
13402 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
13403
13404 <pre>
13405 /*
13406  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
13407  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
13408  * directory.
13409  * License: GPL v2 or later
13410  *
13411  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
13412  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
13413 */
13414
13415 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
13416 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
13417 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
13418
13419 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
13420
13421 #include &lt;errno.h>
13422 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
13423 #include &lt;stdio.h>
13424 #include &lt;string.h>
13425 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
13426 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
13427 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
13428 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
13429 #include &lt;unistd.h>
13430
13431 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
13432 /*
13433  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
13434  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
13435  * below.
13436  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
13437  */
13438 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
13439 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
13440   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
13441 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
13442   char *zErrMsg;
13443   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
13444   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
13445   unlink(name);
13446   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
13447   if( rc ){
13448     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
13449     sqlite3_close(db);
13450     return -1;
13451   }
13452
13453   /* create tables */
13454   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
13455   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
13456     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
13457     sqlite3_close(db);
13458     return -1;
13459   }
13460   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
13461   sqlite3_close(db);
13462   return 0;
13463 }
13464 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
13465
13466 /*
13467  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
13468  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
13469  * done in the sqlite3 library.
13470  * See also
13471  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
13472  * POSIX specification
13473  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
13474  */
13475 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
13476   struct flock fl;
13477   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
13478   unlink(name);
13479   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
13480   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
13481
13482   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
13483   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
13484   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
13485   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
13486   fl.l_len    = 1;
13487   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
13488   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
13489
13490   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
13491   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
13492   fl.l_len    = 510;
13493   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
13494   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
13495
13496   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
13497   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
13498   fl.l_len    = 1;
13499   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
13500   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
13501
13502   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
13503   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
13504   fl.l_len    = 1;
13505   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
13506   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
13507
13508   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
13509   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
13510   fl.l_len    = 510;
13511   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
13512
13513   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
13514   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
13515   fl.l_len    = 2;
13516   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
13517   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
13518
13519   close(fd);
13520   return 0;
13521 }
13522
13523 /*
13524  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
13525  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
13526  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
13527  * slowing down file operations.
13528  */
13529 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
13530 #define LEVELS 5
13531   char *path = strdup("test");
13532   char *dirs[LEVELS];
13533   int level;
13534   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
13535   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
13536     char *newpath = NULL;
13537     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
13538       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
13539              path, strerror(errno));
13540       break;
13541     }
13542     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
13543     free(path);
13544     path = newpath;
13545   }
13546   return 0;
13547 }
13548
13549 /*
13550  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
13551  * KDE.
13552  */
13553 int test_symlinks(void) {
13554   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
13555   unlink("symlink");
13556   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
13557     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
13558   return 0;
13559 }
13560
13561 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
13562   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
13563   test_symlinks();
13564   test_subdirectory_creation();
13565 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
13566   test_sqlite_open();
13567 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
13568   test_gcompris_locking();
13569   return 0;
13570 }
13571 </pre>
13572
13573 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
13574 this:</p>
13575
13576 <pre>
13577 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
13578 info: testing symlink creation
13579 info: testing subdirectory creation
13580 info: sqlite worked
13581 info: testing fcntl locking
13582   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
13583   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
13584   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
13585   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
13586   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
13587   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
13588 </pre>
13589
13590 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
13591 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
13592 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
13593 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
13594 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
13595 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
13596 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
13597 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
13598
13599 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
13600 it. :)</p>
13601
13602 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
13603 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
13604 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
13605
13606       </div>
13607       <div class="tags">
13608
13609
13610         Tags: <a href="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>.
13611
13612
13613       </div>
13614     </div>
13615     <div class="padding"></div>
13616
13617     <div class="entry">
13618       <div class="title">
13619         <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>
13620       </div>
13621       <div class="date">
13622          7th August 2010
13623       </div>
13624       <div class="body">
13625         <p>A few days ago, I
13626 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
13627 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
13628 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
13629 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
13630 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
13631 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
13632 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
13633 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
13634 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
13635
13636 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
13637 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
13638 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
13639 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
13640 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
13641 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
13642 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
13643 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
13644 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
13645 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
13646 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
13647 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
13648 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
13649 gave it a IP address.</p>
13650
13651 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
13652 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
13653 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
13654 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
13655 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
13656 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
13657 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
13658 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
13659
13660 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
13661 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
13662 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
13663 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
13664 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
13665 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
13666
13667 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
13668 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
13669 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
13670 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
13671 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
13672 with UID and GID values.</p>
13673
13674 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
13675 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13676
13677       </div>
13678       <div class="tags">
13679
13680
13681         Tags: <a href="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>.
13682
13683
13684       </div>
13685     </div>
13686     <div class="padding"></div>
13687
13688     <div class="entry">
13689       <div class="title">
13690         <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>
13691       </div>
13692       <div class="date">
13693          3rd August 2010
13694       </div>
13695       <div class="body">
13696         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
13697 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
13698 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
13699 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
13700 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
13701 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
13702 servers.</p>
13703
13704 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
13705 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
13706 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
13707 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
13708 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
13709 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
13710 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
13711 .uio.no.</p>
13712
13713 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
13714 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
13715 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
13716 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
13717 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
13718 university servers.</p>
13719
13720 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
13721 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
13722 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
13723 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
13724 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
13725 uses.</p>
13726
13727       </div>
13728       <div class="tags">
13729
13730
13731         Tags: <a href="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>.
13732
13733
13734       </div>
13735     </div>
13736     <div class="padding"></div>
13737
13738     <div class="entry">
13739       <div class="title">
13740         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
13741       </div>
13742       <div class="date">
13743         27th July 2010
13744       </div>
13745       <div class="body">
13746         <p>I discovered this while doing
13747 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
13748 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
13749 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
13750 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
13751 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
13752
13753 <p>An example is from todays
13754 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
13755 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
13756 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
13757 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
13758 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
13759 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
13760 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
13761
13762 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
13763
13764 <blockquote><pre>
13765 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
13766  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
13767   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
13768 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
13769  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
13770 </pre></blockquote>
13771
13772 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
13773 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
13774 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
13775 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
13776 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
13777 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
13778 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
13779 of dependency loops.</p>
13780
13781 <p>Thanks to
13782 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
13783 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
13784 dependencies
13785 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
13786 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
13787
13788 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
13789 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
13790 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
13791 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
13792 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
13793 it.</p>
13794
13795       </div>
13796       <div class="tags">
13797
13798
13799         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>.
13800
13801
13802       </div>
13803     </div>
13804     <div class="padding"></div>
13805
13806     <div class="entry">
13807       <div class="title">
13808         <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>
13809       </div>
13810       <div class="date">
13811         27th July 2010
13812       </div>
13813       <div class="body">
13814         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
13815 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
13816 completed.</p>
13817
13818 <blockquote>
13819 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
13820 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
13821 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
13822 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
13823 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
13824 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
13825 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
13826 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
13827
13828 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
13829 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
13830 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
13831
13832 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
13833 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
13834 much.</p>
13835
13836 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
13837
13838 <ul>
13839 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
13840 <ul>
13841   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
13842          combination with some new artwork
13843   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
13844   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
13845   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
13846   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
13847   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
13848   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
13849   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
13850   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
13851   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
13852 </ul></li>
13853 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
13854     Enabled for:
13855 <ul>
13856   <li>PAM
13857   <li>LDAP
13858   <li>IMAP
13859   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
13860 </ul>
13861 </li>
13862 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
13863 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
13864     fetched from LDAP.</li>
13865 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
13866 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
13867 </ul>
13868 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
13869
13870 <ul>
13871 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
13872     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
13873     for testing.</li>
13874 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
13875     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
13876     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
13877 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
13878 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
13879 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
13880 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
13881     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
13882 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
13883     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
13884     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
13885 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
13886     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
13887     and help out with translations.</li>
13888 </ul>
13889
13890 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
13891
13892 <ul>
13893 <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>
13894 <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>
13895 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
13896 </ul>
13897 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
13898
13899 <ul>
13900 <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>
13901 <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>
13902 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
13903 </ul>
13904
13905 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
13906 get closer to the final release.</p>
13907
13908 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
13909
13910 <ul>
13911 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
13912 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
13913 </ul>
13914
13915 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
13916 <ul>
13917 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
13918 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
13919 </ul>
13920 <p>How to report bugs:
13921 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
13922
13923 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
13924 </blockquote>
13925
13926       </div>
13927       <div class="tags">
13928
13929
13930         Tags: <a href="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>.
13931
13932
13933       </div>
13934     </div>
13935     <div class="padding"></div>
13936
13937     <div class="entry">
13938       <div class="title">
13939         <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>
13940       </div>
13941       <div class="date">
13942         25th July 2010
13943       </div>
13944       <div class="body">
13945         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
13946 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
13947 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
13948 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
13949 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
13950
13951 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
13952 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
13953 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
13954 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
13955 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
13956 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
13957 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
13958
13959 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
13960 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
13961 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
13962 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
13963 up. :)</p>
13964
13965 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
13966 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
13967 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
13968
13969 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
13970 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
13971 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
13972 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
13973 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
13974 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
13975 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
13976 release another day.</p>
13977
13978 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
13979 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13980
13981       </div>
13982       <div class="tags">
13983
13984
13985         Tags: <a href="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>.
13986
13987
13988       </div>
13989     </div>
13990     <div class="padding"></div>
13991
13992     <div class="entry">
13993       <div class="title">
13994         <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>
13995       </div>
13996       <div class="date">
13997         18th July 2010
13998       </div>
13999       <div class="body">
14000         <p>Thanks to
14001 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
14002 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
14003 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
14004 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
14005 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
14006 only available from the development server, until more experience is
14007 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
14008
14009 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
14010 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
14011 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
14012 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
14013 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
14014 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
14015 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
14016
14017       </div>
14018       <div class="tags">
14019
14020
14021         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>.
14022
14023
14024       </div>
14025     </div>
14026     <div class="padding"></div>
14027
14028     <div class="entry">
14029       <div class="title">
14030         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html">What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</a>
14031       </div>
14032       <div class="date">
14033         17th July 2010
14034       </div>
14035       <div class="body">
14036         <p>This is a
14037 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
14038 on my
14039 <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
14040 work</a> on
14041 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
14042 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
14043
14044 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
14045 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
14046 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
14047 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
14048
14049 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
14050 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
14051 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
14052
14053 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
14054
14055 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
14056 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
14057 the web.
14058
14059 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
14060 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
14061 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
14062 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
14063 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
14064 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
14065
14066 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
14067 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
14068 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
14069 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
14070 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
14071 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
14072 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
14073 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
14074 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
14075 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
14076 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
14077 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
14078 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
14079 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
14080 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
14081 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
14082
14083 <blockquote><pre>
14084 ldapsearch -h ldap \
14085   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
14086   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
14087   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
14088   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
14089   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
14090   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
14091
14092 ldapsearch -h ldap \
14093   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
14094   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
14095   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
14096   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
14097   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
14098 </pre></blockquote>
14099
14100 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
14101 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
14102 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
14103 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14104 also exist.</p>
14105
14106 <blockquote><pre>
14107 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14108 objectclass: top
14109 objectclass: dnsdomain
14110 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
14111 dc: tjener
14112 arecord: 10.0.2.2
14113 associateddomain: tjener.intern
14114
14115 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14116 objectclass: top
14117 objectclass: dnsdomain2
14118 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
14119 dc: 2
14120 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
14121 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
14122 </pre></blockquote>
14123
14124 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
14125 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
14126 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
14127 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
14128 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
14129 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
14130 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
14131 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
14132 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
14133 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
14134 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
14135 instead.</p>
14136
14137 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
14138 like this:</p>
14139
14140 <blockquote><pre>
14141 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
14142   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
14143   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
14144   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
14145   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
14146   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
14147
14148 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
14149   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
14150 </pre></blockquote>
14151
14152 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
14153 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
14154 reverse lookups.</p>
14155
14156 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
14157 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
14158 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
14159 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
14160
14161 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
14162 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
14163 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
14164
14165 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
14166 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
14167 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
14168 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
14169 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
14170
14171 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
14172 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
14173 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
14174 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
14175 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
14176
14177 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
14178 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
14179 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
14180 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
14181 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
14182 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
14183
14184 <blockquote><pre>
14185 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
14186     SUP top
14187     AUXILIARY
14188     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
14189           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
14190           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
14191           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
14192           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
14193     ))
14194 </pre></blockquote>
14195
14196 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
14197 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
14198 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
14199 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
14200 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
14201 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
14202
14203 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
14204
14205 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
14206 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
14207 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
14208 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
14209 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
14210
14211 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
14212 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
14213 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
14214 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
14215
14216 <blockquote><pre>
14217 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
14218 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
14219 </pre></blockquote>
14220
14221 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
14222 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
14223 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
14224 search result is this entry:</p>
14225
14226 <blockquote><pre>
14227 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14228 cn: dhcp
14229 objectClass: top
14230 objectClass: dhcpServer
14231 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14232 </pre></blockquote>
14233
14234 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
14235 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
14236 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
14237 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
14238 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
14239 The search result is this entry:</p>
14240
14241 <blockquote><pre>
14242 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14243 cn: DHCP Config
14244 objectClass: top
14245 objectClass: dhcpService
14246 objectClass: dhcpOptions
14247 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14248 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
14249 dhcpStatements: authoritative
14250 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
14251 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
14252 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
14253 </pre></blockquote>
14254
14255 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
14256 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
14257 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
14258 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
14259 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
14260 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
14261 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
14262 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
14263 related computer objects.</p>
14264
14265 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
14266 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
14267 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
14268 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
14269 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
14270 like:</p>
14271
14272 <blockquote><pre>
14273 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14274 cn: hostname
14275 objectClass: top
14276 objectClass: dhcpHost
14277 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
14278 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
14279 </pre></blockquote>
14280
14281 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
14282 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
14283 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
14284 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
14285 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
14286 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
14287 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
14288 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
14289 structural object class.
14290
14291 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
14292
14293 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
14294 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
14295 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
14296 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
14297 in the configuration.</p>
14298
14299 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
14300 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
14301 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
14302 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
14303 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
14304 structure.</p>
14305
14306 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
14307 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
14308
14309 <blockquote><pre>
14310 ou=services
14311   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
14312     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
14313     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
14314       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
14315         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
14316     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
14317       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
14318         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
14319     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
14320       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
14321 </pre></blockquote>
14322
14323 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
14324 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
14325 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
14326 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
14327
14328 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
14329 like this:</p>
14330
14331 <blockquote><pre>
14332 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14333 dc: hostname
14334 objectClass: top
14335 objectClass: dhcpHost
14336 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
14337 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
14338 associateddomain: hostname.intern
14339 arecord: 10.11.12.13
14340 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
14341 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
14342 </pre></blockquote>
14343
14344 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
14345 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
14346 auxiliary object class.</p>
14347
14348       </div>
14349       <div class="tags">
14350
14351
14352         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>.
14353
14354
14355       </div>
14356     </div>
14357     <div class="padding"></div>
14358
14359     <div class="entry">
14360       <div class="title">
14361         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
14362       </div>
14363       <div class="date">
14364         14th July 2010
14365       </div>
14366       <div class="body">
14367         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
14368 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
14369 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
14370 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
14371 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
14372
14373 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
14374 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
14375
14376 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
14377 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
14378 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
14379 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
14380 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
14381 to a slave DNS server.</p>
14382
14383 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
14384 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
14385 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
14386 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
14387 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
14388 seem to work.</p>
14389
14390 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
14391 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
14392 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
14393 this:</p>
14394
14395 <blockquote><pre>
14396   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14397   cn: hostname
14398   objectClass: dhcphost
14399   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
14400   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
14401   associateddomain: hostname.intern
14402   arecord: 10.11.12.13
14403   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
14404   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
14405   ldapconfigsound: Y
14406 </pre></blockquote>
14407
14408 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
14409 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
14410 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
14411 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
14412
14413 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
14414 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
14415 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
14416 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
14417 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
14418 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
14419 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
14420 might be a good place to put it.</p>
14421
14422 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
14423 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14424
14425       </div>
14426       <div class="tags">
14427
14428
14429         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>.
14430
14431
14432       </div>
14433     </div>
14434     <div class="padding"></div>
14435
14436     <div class="entry">
14437       <div class="title">
14438         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
14439       </div>
14440       <div class="date">
14441         11th July 2010
14442       </div>
14443       <div class="body">
14444         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
14445 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
14446 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
14447 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
14448
14449 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
14450 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
14451 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
14452 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
14453 LTSP clients.</p>
14454
14455 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
14456 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
14457 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
14458
14459 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
14460 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
14461 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
14462
14463 <blockquote><pre>
14464 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
14465 #
14466 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
14467 #
14468 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
14469 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
14470 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
14471 #
14472 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
14473 # existence of attribute names.
14474 #
14475 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
14476 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
14477 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
14478 #
14479 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
14480 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
14481 #
14482 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
14483 #     SUP top
14484 #     AUXILIARY
14485 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
14486
14487 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
14488 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
14489     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
14490     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
14491         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
14492         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
14493             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
14494             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
14495             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
14496             # bass value on to clients
14497             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
14498         done
14499     done
14500 fi
14501 </pre></blockquote>
14502
14503 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
14504 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
14505 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
14506 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
14507 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
14508
14509 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
14510 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14511
14512 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
14513 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
14514 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
14515 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
14516 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
14517 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
14518
14519       </div>
14520       <div class="tags">
14521
14522
14523         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>.
14524
14525
14526       </div>
14527     </div>
14528     <div class="padding"></div>
14529
14530     <div class="entry">
14531       <div class="title">
14532         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
14533       </div>
14534       <div class="date">
14535          9th July 2010
14536       </div>
14537       <div class="body">
14538         <p>Since
14539 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
14540 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
14541 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
14542 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
14543 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
14544 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
14545 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
14546 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
14547 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
14548 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
14549 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
14550 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
14551 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
14552
14553       </div>
14554       <div class="tags">
14555
14556
14557         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>.
14558
14559
14560       </div>
14561     </div>
14562     <div class="padding"></div>
14563
14564     <div class="entry">
14565       <div class="title">
14566         <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>
14567       </div>
14568       <div class="date">
14569          3rd July 2010
14570       </div>
14571       <div class="body">
14572         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
14573 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
14574 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
14575 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
14576 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
14577 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
14578 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
14579 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
14580
14581 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
14582 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
14583 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
14584 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
14585 publish the difference.</p>
14586
14587 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
14588
14589 <blockquote><p>
14590   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
14591   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
14592   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
14593   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
14594   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
14595   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
14596   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
14597   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
14598 </p></blockquote>
14599
14600 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
14601
14602 <blockquote><p>
14603   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
14604   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
14605   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
14606   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
14607   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
14608   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
14609   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
14610   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
14611   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
14612   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
14613   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
14614   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
14615   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
14616   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
14617   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
14618   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
14619   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
14620   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
14621   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
14622   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
14623 </p></blockquote>
14624
14625 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
14626
14627 <blockquote><p>
14628   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
14629   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
14630   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
14631   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
14632   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
14633   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
14634   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
14635   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
14636   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
14637   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
14638   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
14639   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
14640   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
14641   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
14642   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
14643   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
14644   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
14645   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
14646   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
14647   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
14648   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
14649 </p></blockquote>
14650
14651 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
14652
14653 <blockquote><p>
14654   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
14655   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
14656   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
14657 </p></blockquote>
14658
14659 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
14660 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
14661 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
14662 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
14663 the difference somewhat.
14664
14665       </div>
14666       <div class="tags">
14667
14668
14669         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>.
14670
14671
14672       </div>
14673     </div>
14674     <div class="padding"></div>
14675
14676     <div class="entry">
14677       <div class="title">
14678         <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>
14679       </div>
14680       <div class="date">
14681          1st July 2010
14682       </div>
14683       <div class="body">
14684         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
14685 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
14686 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
14687 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
14688 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
14689 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
14690 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
14691 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
14692 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
14693
14694 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
14695
14696 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
14697 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
14698 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
14699 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
14700 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
14701 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
14702 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
14703 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
14704 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
14705 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
14706 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
14707 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
14708 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
14709 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
14710 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
14711
14712 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
14713
14714 <blockquote><pre>
14715 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
14716 </pre></blockquote>
14717
14718 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
14719 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
14720 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
14721 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
14722 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
14723 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
14724 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
14725 on how to get this working.</p>
14726
14727 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
14728 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
14729 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
14730 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
14731 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
14732 instructions I found in the
14733 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
14734 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
14735
14736 <blockquote><pre>
14737         debug-level             0
14738         reload-count            unlimited
14739         paranoia                no
14740
14741         enable-cache            passwd          yes
14742         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
14743         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
14744         suggested-size          passwd          211
14745         check-files             passwd          yes
14746         persistent              passwd          yes
14747         shared                  passwd          yes
14748         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
14749         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
14750
14751         enable-cache            group           yes
14752         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
14753         negative-time-to-live   group           20
14754         suggested-size          group           211
14755         check-files             group           yes
14756         persistent              group           yes
14757         shared                  group           yes
14758         max-db-size             group           33554432
14759         auto-propagate          group           yes
14760
14761         enable-cache            hosts           no
14762         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
14763         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
14764         suggested-size          hosts           211
14765         check-files             hosts           yes
14766         persistent              hosts           yes
14767         shared                  hosts           yes
14768         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
14769
14770         enable-cache            services        yes
14771         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
14772         negative-time-to-live   services        20
14773         suggested-size          services        211
14774         check-files             services        yes
14775         persistent              services        yes
14776         shared                  services        yes
14777         max-db-size             services        33554432
14778 </pre></blockquote>
14779
14780 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
14781 automatically like the one provided in
14782 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
14783 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
14784 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
14785 look like this:</p>
14786
14787 <blockquote><pre>
14788 passwd:         files ldap
14789 group:          files ldap
14790 shadow:         files ldap
14791 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
14792 networks:       files
14793 protocols:      files
14794 services:       files
14795 ethers:         files
14796 rpc:            files
14797 netgroup:       files ldap
14798 </pre></blockquote>
14799
14800 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
14801 shadow and netgroup.</p>
14802
14803 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
14804 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
14805 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
14806 attributes cached.
14807
14808 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
14809   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
14810
14811 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
14812 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
14813 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
14814 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
14815 discovered sssd.</p>
14816
14817 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
14818
14819 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
14820 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
14821 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
14822 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
14823 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
14824 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
14825 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
14826 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
14827 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
14828 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
14829 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
14830 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
14831 version 1.2 is now in testing.
14832
14833 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
14834 roaming setup I want</p>
14835
14836 <blockquote><pre>
14837 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
14838 </pre></blockquote>
14839
14840 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
14841 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
14842
14843 <blockquote><pre>
14844 [sssd]
14845 config_file_version = 2
14846 reconnection_retries = 3
14847 sbus_timeout = 30
14848 services = nss, pam
14849 domains = INTERN
14850
14851 [nss]
14852 filter_groups = root
14853 filter_users = root
14854 reconnection_retries = 3
14855
14856 [pam]
14857 reconnection_retries = 3
14858
14859 [domain/INTERN]
14860 enumerate = false
14861 cache_credentials = true
14862
14863 id_provider = ldap
14864 auth_provider = ldap
14865 chpass_provider = ldap
14866
14867 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
14868 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14869 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
14870 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
14871 </pre></blockquote>
14872
14873 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
14874 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
14875
14876 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
14877 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
14878 modify it manually.</p>
14879
14880 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
14881 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14882
14883       </div>
14884       <div class="tags">
14885
14886
14887         Tags: <a href="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>.
14888
14889
14890       </div>
14891     </div>
14892     <div class="padding"></div>
14893
14894     <div class="entry">
14895       <div class="title">
14896         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
14897       </div>
14898       <div class="date">
14899         28th June 2010
14900       </div>
14901       <div class="body">
14902         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
14903 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
14904 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
14905 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
14906 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
14907 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
14908 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
14909 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
14910 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
14911 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
14912
14913 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
14914 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
14915 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
14916 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
14917 released.</p>
14918
14919 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
14920 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
14921 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
14922 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
14923
14924 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
14925 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14926
14927 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
14928 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
14929 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
14930 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
14931 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
14932
14933       </div>
14934       <div class="tags">
14935
14936
14937         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>.
14938
14939
14940       </div>
14941     </div>
14942     <div class="padding"></div>
14943
14944     <div class="entry">
14945       <div class="title">
14946         <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>
14947       </div>
14948       <div class="date">
14949         24th June 2010
14950       </div>
14951       <div class="body">
14952         <p>A while back, I
14953 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
14954 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
14955 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
14956 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
14957
14958 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
14959 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
14960 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
14961 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
14962
14963 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
14964 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
14965 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
14966 Debian Edu.</p>
14967
14968 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
14969 the
14970 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
14971 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
14972 available today from IETF.</p>
14973
14974 <pre>
14975 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
14976 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
14977 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
14978  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
14979         NAME 'dhcpHost'
14980         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
14981 -       SUP top
14982 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
14983         MUST cn
14984         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
14985         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
14986 </pre>
14987
14988 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
14989 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
14990 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
14991
14992 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
14993 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14994
14995       </div>
14996       <div class="tags">
14997
14998
14999         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>.
15000
15001
15002       </div>
15003     </div>
15004     <div class="padding"></div>
15005
15006     <div class="entry">
15007       <div class="title">
15008         <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>
15009       </div>
15010       <div class="date">
15011         16th June 2010
15012       </div>
15013       <div class="body">
15014         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
15015 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
15016 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
15017 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
15018 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
15019 this:
15020
15021 <blockquote><pre>
15022 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
15023 tasksel --new-install
15024 </pre></blockquote>
15025
15026 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
15027 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
15028 any output what so ever.
15029
15030 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
15031 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
15032 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
15033 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
15034 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
15035 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
15036 code like this:
15037
15038 <blockquote><pre>
15039 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
15040 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
15041 $cmd
15042 </pre></blockquote>
15043
15044 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
15045 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
15046 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
15047 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
15048 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
15049 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
15050 installation.</p>
15051
15052 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
15053 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
15054 like this.</p>
15055
15056       </div>
15057       <div class="tags">
15058
15059
15060         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>.
15061
15062
15063       </div>
15064     </div>
15065     <div class="padding"></div>
15066
15067     <div class="entry">
15068       <div class="title">
15069         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
15070       </div>
15071       <div class="date">
15072         13th June 2010
15073       </div>
15074       <div class="body">
15075         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
15076 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
15077 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
15078 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
15079 pages.</p>
15080
15081 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
15082 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
15083 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
15084 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
15085 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
15086 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
15087 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
15088 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
15089 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
15090 see how the project is doing.</p>
15091
15092 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
15093 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
15094 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
15095 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
15096 Windows.  This is great.</p>
15097
15098       </div>
15099       <div class="tags">
15100
15101
15102         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>.
15103
15104
15105       </div>
15106     </div>
15107     <div class="padding"></div>
15108
15109     <div class="entry">
15110       <div class="title">
15111         <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>
15112       </div>
15113       <div class="date">
15114         13th June 2010
15115       </div>
15116       <div class="body">
15117         <p>My
15118 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
15119 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
15120 finally made the upgrade logs available from
15121 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
15122 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
15123 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
15124 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
15125
15126 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
15127 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
15128 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
15129 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
15130 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
15131 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
15132 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
15133 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
15134
15135 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
15136 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
15137 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
15138 too surprising.</p>
15139
15140 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
15141 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
15142 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
15143 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
15144 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
15145 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
15146 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
15147 continue.</p>
15148
15149 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
15150 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
15151   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
15152   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
15153   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
15154   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
15155   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
15156   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
15157   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
15158   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
15159   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
15160   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
15161   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
15162   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
15163   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
15164   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
15165   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
15166   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
15167   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
15168   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
15169   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
15170   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
15171   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
15172   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
15173   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
15174   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
15175   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
15176   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
15177   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
15178   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
15179
15180 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
15181
15182 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
15183   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
15184   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
15185   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
15186   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
15187   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
15188   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
15189   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
15190   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
15191   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
15192   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
15193   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
15194   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
15195   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
15196   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
15197   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
15198   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
15199   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
15200   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
15201   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
15202   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
15203   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
15204   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
15205   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
15206   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
15207   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
15208   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
15209   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
15210   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
15211   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
15212   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
15213   zip</p>
15214
15215 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
15216
15217 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
15218   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
15219   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
15220   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
15221   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
15222   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
15223   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
15224   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
15225   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
15226   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
15227   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
15228   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
15229   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
15230   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
15231   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
15232   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
15233   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
15234   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
15235   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
15236   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
15237   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
15238   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
15239   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
15240   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
15241   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
15242   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
15243   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
15244   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
15245
15246 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
15247 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
15248   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
15249   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
15250   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
15251   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
15252   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
15253   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
15254   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
15255   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
15256   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
15257   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
15258   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
15259   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
15260   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
15261   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
15262   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
15263   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
15264   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
15265   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
15266   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
15267   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
15268   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
15269   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
15270   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
15271   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
15272   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
15273   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
15274   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
15275   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
15276   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
15277   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
15278   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
15279   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
15280   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
15281   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
15282   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
15283   xulrunner-1.9</p>
15284
15285
15286       </div>
15287       <div class="tags">
15288
15289
15290         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>.
15291
15292
15293       </div>
15294     </div>
15295     <div class="padding"></div>
15296
15297     <div class="entry">
15298       <div class="title">
15299         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
15300       </div>
15301       <div class="date">
15302         11th June 2010
15303       </div>
15304       <div class="body">
15305         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
15306 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
15307 have been discovered and reported in the process
15308 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
15309 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
15310 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
15311 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
15312 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
15313
15314 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
15315 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
15316 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
15317 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
15318 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
15319 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
15320
15321 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
15322 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
15323 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
15324 is created.  The bug report
15325 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
15326 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
15327 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
15328 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
15329 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
15330 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
15331 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
15332 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
15333 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
15334 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
15335 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
15336 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
15337 Debian Squeeze.</p>
15338
15339 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
15340 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
15341 trick:</p>
15342
15343 <blockquote><pre>
15344 #!/bin/sh
15345 set -ex
15346
15347 if [ "$1" ] ; then
15348     desktop=$1
15349 else
15350     desktop=gnome
15351 fi
15352
15353 from=lenny
15354 to=squeeze
15355
15356 exec &lt; /dev/null
15357 unset LANG
15358 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
15359 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
15360 fuser -mv .
15361 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
15362 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
15363 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
15364 #!/bin/sh
15365 exit 101
15366 EOF
15367 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
15368 exit_cleanup() {
15369     umount $tmpdir/proc
15370 }
15371 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
15372 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
15373 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
15374
15375 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
15376
15377 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
15378 # to return the correct answers.
15379 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
15380     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
15381
15382 # Include the desktop and laptop task
15383 for test in desktop laptop ; do
15384     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
15385 #!/bin/sh
15386 exit 2
15387 EOF
15388     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
15389 done
15390
15391 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
15392 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
15393 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
15394 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
15395
15396 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
15397 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
15398 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
15399 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
15400 fuser -mv
15401 </pre></blockquote>
15402
15403 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
15404 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
15405 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
15406 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
15407 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
15408 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
15409
15410 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
15411 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
15412 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
15413 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
15414 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
15415 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
15416 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
15417
15418 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
15419 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
15420 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
15421 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
15422 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
15423 packages.</p>
15424
15425       </div>
15426       <div class="tags">
15427
15428
15429         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>.
15430
15431
15432       </div>
15433     </div>
15434     <div class="padding"></div>
15435
15436     <div class="entry">
15437       <div class="title">
15438         <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>
15439       </div>
15440       <div class="date">
15441          6th June 2010
15442       </div>
15443       <div class="body">
15444         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
15445 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
15446 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
15447 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
15448 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
15449 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
15450 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
15451
15452 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
15453 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
15454 COLUMNS):</p>
15455
15456 <blockquote><pre>
15457 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
15458 previous=N
15459 PREVLEVEL=
15460 RUNLEVEL=
15461 runlevel=S
15462 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
15463 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
15464 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
15465 </pre></blockquote>
15466
15467 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
15468 script.</p>
15469
15470 <blockquote><pre>
15471 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
15472 previous=N
15473 PREVLEVEL=N
15474 RUNLEVEL=S
15475 runlevel=S
15476 </pre></blockquote>
15477
15478 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
15479 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
15480 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
15481
15482 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
15483 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
15484 choice.</p>
15485
15486       </div>
15487       <div class="tags">
15488
15489
15490         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>.
15491
15492
15493       </div>
15494     </div>
15495     <div class="padding"></div>
15496
15497     <div class="entry">
15498       <div class="title">
15499         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
15500       </div>
15501       <div class="date">
15502          6th June 2010
15503       </div>
15504       <div class="body">
15505         <p>Via the
15506 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
15507 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
15508 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
15509 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
15510 following the standards wars of today.</p>
15511
15512       </div>
15513       <div class="tags">
15514
15515
15516         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>.
15517
15518
15519       </div>
15520     </div>
15521     <div class="padding"></div>
15522
15523     <div class="entry">
15524       <div class="title">
15525         <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>
15526       </div>
15527       <div class="date">
15528          3rd June 2010
15529       </div>
15530       <div class="body">
15531         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
15532 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
15533 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
15534 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
15535 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
15536
15537 <blockquote><pre>
15538 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
15539   vendor                    count
15540   Dell Computer Corporation     1
15541     PowerEdge 1750              1
15542   IBM                           1
15543     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
15544   Intel                         2
15545   [no-dmi-info]                 3
15546 maintainer:~#
15547 </pre></blockquote>
15548
15549 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
15550 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
15551 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
15552 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
15553 option to list the individual machines.</p>
15554
15555 <p>A larger list is
15556 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
15557 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
15558 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
15559 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
15560 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
15561 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
15562 collector.</p>
15563
15564       </div>
15565       <div class="tags">
15566
15567
15568         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>.
15569
15570
15571       </div>
15572     </div>
15573     <div class="padding"></div>
15574
15575     <div class="entry">
15576       <div class="title">
15577         <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>
15578       </div>
15579       <div class="date">
15580          1st June 2010
15581       </div>
15582       <div class="body">
15583         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
15584 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
15585 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
15586 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
15587 wait.</p>
15588
15589 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
15590 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
15591 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
15592 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
15593 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
15594 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
15595
15596 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
15597 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
15598 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
15599 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
15600 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
15601 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
15602 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
15603 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
15604
15605 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
15606
15607       </div>
15608       <div class="tags">
15609
15610
15611         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>.
15612
15613
15614       </div>
15615     </div>
15616     <div class="padding"></div>
15617
15618     <div class="entry">
15619       <div class="title">
15620         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
15621       </div>
15622       <div class="date">
15623         27th May 2010
15624       </div>
15625       <div class="body">
15626         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
15627 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
15628 issues are known and should be solved:
15629
15630 <p><ul>
15631
15632 <li>The wicd package seen to
15633 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
15634 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
15635 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
15636 seem to be on the case.</li>
15637
15638 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
15639 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
15640 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
15641 maintainer is on the case.</li>
15642
15643 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
15644 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
15645 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
15646 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
15647 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
15648 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
15649 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
15650 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
15651
15652 </ul></p>
15653
15654 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
15655 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
15656 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
15657 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
15658
15659 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
15660 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
15661 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
15662 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
15663
15664 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
15665
15666       </div>
15667       <div class="tags">
15668
15669
15670         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>.
15671
15672
15673       </div>
15674     </div>
15675     <div class="padding"></div>
15676
15677     <div class="entry">
15678       <div class="title">
15679         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
15680       </div>
15681       <div class="date">
15682         22nd May 2010
15683       </div>
15684       <div class="body">
15685         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
15686 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
15687 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
15688 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
15689
15690 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
15691 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
15692 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
15693 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
15694 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
15695 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
15696 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
15697 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
15698 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
15699 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
15700 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
15701 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
15702 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
15703 going to work.</p>
15704
15705 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
15706 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
15707 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
15708 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
15709 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
15710 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
15711 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
15712 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
15713 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
15714 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
15715 Edu.</p>
15716
15717 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
15718 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
15719 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
15720 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
15721 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
15722 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
15723
15724 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
15725 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
15726
15727       </div>
15728       <div class="tags">
15729
15730
15731         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>.
15732
15733
15734       </div>
15735     </div>
15736     <div class="padding"></div>
15737
15738     <div class="entry">
15739       <div class="title">
15740         <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>
15741       </div>
15742       <div class="date">
15743         19th May 2010
15744       </div>
15745       <div class="body">
15746         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
15747 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
15748 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
15749 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
15750 into unstable.  The
15751 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
15752 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
15753 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
15754 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
15755 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
15756 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
15757 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
15758
15759 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
15760 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
15761 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
15762 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
15763 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
15764 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
15765 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
15766 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
15767
15768 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
15769 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
15770 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
15771 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
15772 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
15773 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
15774 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
15775
15776 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
15777 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
15778 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
15779 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
15780 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
15781 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
15782 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
15783 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
15784 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
15785 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
15786 on the home directory servers.</p>
15787
15788 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
15789 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
15790 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
15791 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
15792 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
15793 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
15794
15795 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
15796 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15797
15798       </div>
15799       <div class="tags">
15800
15801
15802         Tags: <a href="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>.
15803
15804
15805       </div>
15806     </div>
15807     <div class="padding"></div>
15808
15809     <div class="entry">
15810       <div class="title">
15811         <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>
15812       </div>
15813       <div class="date">
15814         14th May 2010
15815       </div>
15816       <div class="body">
15817         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
15818 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
15819 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
15820 expected, if I am to believe the
15821 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
15822 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
15823 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
15824 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
15825 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
15826 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
15827 version.</p>
15828
15829 More information about
15830 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
15831 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
15832 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
15833 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
15834
15835 <blockquote><pre>
15836 CONCURRENCY=none
15837 </pre></blockquote>
15838
15839 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
15840 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
15841 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
15842 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
15843
15844       </div>
15845       <div class="tags">
15846
15847
15848         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>.
15849
15850
15851       </div>
15852     </div>
15853     <div class="padding"></div>
15854
15855     <div class="entry">
15856       <div class="title">
15857         <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>
15858       </div>
15859       <div class="date">
15860         14th May 2010
15861       </div>
15862       <div class="body">
15863         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
15864 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
15865 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
15866 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
15867 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
15868 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
15869 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
15870 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
15871
15872 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
15873 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
15874 this on the collector host:</p>
15875
15876 <blockquote><pre>
15877 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
15878 </pre></blockquote>
15879
15880 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
15881 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
15882
15883 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
15884 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
15885 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
15886 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
15887 written yet.</p>
15888
15889       </div>
15890       <div class="tags">
15891
15892
15893         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>.
15894
15895
15896       </div>
15897     </div>
15898     <div class="padding"></div>
15899
15900     <div class="entry">
15901       <div class="title">
15902         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
15903       </div>
15904       <div class="date">
15905         13th May 2010
15906       </div>
15907       <div class="body">
15908         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
15909 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
15910 has been
15911 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
15912
15913 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
15914 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
15915 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
15916 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
15917 based boot system.  Tollef is
15918 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
15919 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
15920 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
15921 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
15922 at the moment do not.</p>
15923
15924 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
15925 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
15926 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
15927 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
15928 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
15929 way forward.</p>
15930
15931 <p>In the mean time, based on the
15932 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
15933 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
15934 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
15935 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
15936 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
15937 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
15938 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
15939 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
15940
15941       </div>
15942       <div class="tags">
15943
15944
15945         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>.
15946
15947
15948       </div>
15949     </div>
15950     <div class="padding"></div>
15951
15952     <div class="entry">
15953       <div class="title">
15954         <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>
15955       </div>
15956       <div class="date">
15957          6th May 2010
15958       </div>
15959       <div class="body">
15960         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
15961 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
15962 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
15963 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
15964 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
15965 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
15966 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
15967
15968 <blockquote><pre>
15969 CONCURRENCY=makefile
15970 </pre></blockquote>
15971
15972 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
15973 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
15974 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
15975 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
15976 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
15977 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
15978 make this happen.</p>
15979
15980 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
15981 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
15982 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
15983 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
15984 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
15985
15986 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
15987 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
15988 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
15989 fix the remaining issues.</p>
15990
15991 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
15992 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
15993 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
15994 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
15995
15996       </div>
15997       <div class="tags">
15998
15999
16000         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>.
16001
16002
16003       </div>
16004     </div>
16005     <div class="padding"></div>
16006
16007     <div class="entry">
16008       <div class="title">
16009         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Forcing_new_users_to_change_their_password_on_first_login.html">Forcing new users to change their password on first login</a>
16010       </div>
16011       <div class="date">
16012          2nd May 2010
16013       </div>
16014       <div class="body">
16015         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
16016 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
16017 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
16018
16019 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
16020 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
16021 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
16022 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
16023 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
16024
16025 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
16026 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
16027
16028 <blockquote><pre>
16029 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
16030 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
16031 Password expires                                        : never
16032 Password inactive                                       : never
16033 Account expires                                         : never
16034 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
16035 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
16036 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
16037 root@tjener:~#
16038 </pre></blockquote>
16039
16040 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
16041 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
16042 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
16043 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
16044 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
16045 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
16046
16047 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
16048 intended:</p>
16049
16050 <blockquote><pre>
16051 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
16052 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
16053 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
16054 Password expires                                        : never
16055 Password inactive                                       : never
16056 Account expires                                         : never
16057 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
16058 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
16059 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
16060 root@tjener:~#
16061 </pre></blockquote>
16062
16063 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
16064 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
16065 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
16066
16067 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
16068 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
16069
16070 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
16071 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16072
16073 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
16074 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
16075 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
16076 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
16077 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
16078 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
16079 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
16080
16081 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
16082 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
16083 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
16084 change.</p>
16085
16086       </div>
16087       <div class="tags">
16088
16089
16090         Tags: <a href="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>.
16091
16092
16093       </div>
16094     </div>
16095     <div class="padding"></div>
16096
16097     <div class="entry">
16098       <div class="title">
16099         <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>
16100       </div>
16101       <div class="date">
16102         28th April 2010
16103       </div>
16104       <div class="body">
16105         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
16106 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
16107 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
16108 and go.</p>
16109
16110 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
16111 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
16112 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
16113 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
16114
16115 <ul>
16116
16117  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
16118    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
16119    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
16120    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
16121    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
16122    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
16123    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
16124    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
16125    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
16126    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
16127    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
16128    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
16129
16130  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
16131    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
16132    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
16133    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
16134    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
16135    or the Fedora developed
16136    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
16137    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
16138
16139  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
16140    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
16141    directory, using unison.</li>
16142
16143  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
16144    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
16145    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
16146    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
16147    implemented.</li>
16148
16149  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
16150    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
16151
16152  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
16153    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
16154    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
16155
16156 </ul>
16157
16158 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
16159 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
16160 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
16161 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
16162 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
16163 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
16164 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
16165 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
16166 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
16167
16168 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
16169 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16170
16171       </div>
16172       <div class="tags">
16173
16174
16175         Tags: <a href="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>.
16176
16177
16178       </div>
16179     </div>
16180     <div class="padding"></div>
16181
16182     <div class="entry">
16183       <div class="title">
16184         <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>
16185       </div>
16186       <div class="date">
16187         19th April 2010
16188       </div>
16189       <div class="body">
16190         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
16191 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
16192 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
16193 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
16194 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
16195 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
16196 restrictions on the web, for example from
16197 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
16198 epub-version from
16199 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
16200 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
16201 strongly recommend this book.</p>
16202
16203       </div>
16204       <div class="tags">
16205
16206
16207         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>.
16208
16209
16210       </div>
16211     </div>
16212     <div class="padding"></div>
16213
16214     <div class="entry">
16215       <div class="title">
16216         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
16217       </div>
16218       <div class="date">
16219         14th April 2010
16220       </div>
16221       <div class="body">
16222         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
16223 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
16224 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
16225 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
16226 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
16227 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
16228 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
16229 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
16230 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
16231
16232 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
16233 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
16234 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
16235 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
16236 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
16237
16238 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
16239 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
16240
16241 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
16242 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
16243 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
16244 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
16245 to work properly.</p>
16246
16247 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
16248 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
16249 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
16250 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
16251 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
16252 time.</p>
16253
16254 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
16255 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
16256 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
16257 up in a few days.</p>
16258
16259       </div>
16260       <div class="tags">
16261
16262
16263         Tags: <a href="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>.
16264
16265
16266       </div>
16267     </div>
16268     <div class="padding"></div>
16269
16270     <div class="entry">
16271       <div class="title">
16272         <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>
16273       </div>
16274       <div class="date">
16275          6th March 2010
16276       </div>
16277       <div class="body">
16278         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
16279 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
16280 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
16281 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
16282 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
16283 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
16284
16285 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
16286 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
16287 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
16288 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
16289
16290 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
16291 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
16292 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
16293 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
16294 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
16295 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
16296
16297       </div>
16298       <div class="tags">
16299
16300
16301         Tags: <a href="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>.
16302
16303
16304       </div>
16305     </div>
16306     <div class="padding"></div>
16307
16308     <div class="entry">
16309       <div class="title">
16310         <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>
16311       </div>
16312       <div class="date">
16313         11th February 2010
16314       </div>
16315       <div class="body">
16316         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
16317 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
16318 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
16319 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
16320 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
16321 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
16322 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
16323
16324 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
16325
16326 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
16327 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
16328 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
16329 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
16330
16331       </div>
16332       <div class="tags">
16333
16334
16335         Tags: <a href="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>.
16336
16337
16338       </div>
16339     </div>
16340     <div class="padding"></div>
16341
16342     <div class="entry">
16343       <div class="title">
16344         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
16345       </div>
16346       <div class="date">
16347         27th January 2010
16348       </div>
16349       <div class="body">
16350         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
16351 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
16352 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
16353 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
16354 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
16355 further.</p>
16356
16357 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
16358 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
16359 configured to be a server for the
16360 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
16361 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
16362 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
16363 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
16364 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
16365 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
16366 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
16367 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
16368 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
16369 and Nagios configuration.</p>
16370
16371 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
16372 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
16373 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
16374 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
16375
16376 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
16377 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
16378 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
16379 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
16380 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
16381 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
16382 the machine.</p>
16383
16384 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
16385 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
16386 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
16387 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
16388
16389 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
16390 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
16391 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
16392 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
16393 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
16394 everything is taken care of.</p>
16395
16396       </div>
16397       <div class="tags">
16398
16399
16400         Tags: <a href="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>.
16401
16402
16403       </div>
16404     </div>
16405     <div class="padding"></div>
16406
16407     <div class="entry">
16408       <div class="title">
16409         <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>
16410       </div>
16411       <div class="date">
16412         12th August 2009
16413       </div>
16414       <div class="body">
16415         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
16416 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
16417 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
16418 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
16419
16420 <table>
16421 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
16422 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
16423 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
16424 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
16425 </table>
16426
16427 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
16428 got these numbers:</p>
16429
16430 <table>
16431 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
16432 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
16433 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
16434 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
16435 </table>
16436
16437 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
16438
16439 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
16440 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
16441 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
16442 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
16443 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
16444
16445
16446 <table>
16447 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
16448 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
16449 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
16450 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
16451 </table>
16452
16453 <p>And with 'site:no':
16454
16455 <table>
16456 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
16457 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
16458 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
16459 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
16460 </table>
16461
16462 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
16463 numbers.</p>
16464
16465       </div>
16466       <div class="tags">
16467
16468
16469         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>.
16470
16471
16472       </div>
16473     </div>
16474     <div class="padding"></div>
16475
16476     <div class="entry">
16477       <div class="title">
16478         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
16479       </div>
16480       <div class="date">
16481          8th August 2009
16482       </div>
16483       <div class="body">
16484         <p>According to <a
16485 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
16486 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
16487 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
16488 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
16489 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
16490 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
16491 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
16492 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
16493 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
16494 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
16495
16496 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
16497 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
16498 seminar this autumn.</p>
16499
16500       </div>
16501       <div class="tags">
16502
16503
16504         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>.
16505
16506
16507       </div>
16508     </div>
16509     <div class="padding"></div>
16510
16511     <div class="entry">
16512       <div class="title">
16513         <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>
16514       </div>
16515       <div class="date">
16516         27th July 2009
16517       </div>
16518       <div class="body">
16519         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
16520 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
16521 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
16522 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
16523 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
16524 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
16525 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
16526
16527 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
16528 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
16529 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
16530
16531       </div>
16532       <div class="tags">
16533
16534
16535         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>.
16536
16537
16538       </div>
16539     </div>
16540     <div class="padding"></div>
16541
16542     <div class="entry">
16543       <div class="title">
16544         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
16545       </div>
16546       <div class="date">
16547         22nd July 2009
16548       </div>
16549       <div class="body">
16550         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
16551 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
16552 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
16553 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
16554 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
16555 the package up to date.</p>
16556
16557 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
16558 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
16559 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
16560 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
16561 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
16562 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
16563 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
16564 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
16565 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
16566 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
16567 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
16568 working on the future release.</p>
16569
16570 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
16571 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
16572
16573       </div>
16574       <div class="tags">
16575
16576
16577         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>.
16578
16579
16580       </div>
16581     </div>
16582     <div class="padding"></div>
16583
16584     <div class="entry">
16585       <div class="title">
16586         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
16587       </div>
16588       <div class="date">
16589         24th June 2009
16590       </div>
16591       <div class="body">
16592         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
16593 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
16594 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
16595 funded
16596 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
16597 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
16598 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
16599 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
16600 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
16601 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
16602
16603 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
16604 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
16605 boot:</p>
16606
16607 <ul>
16608
16609 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
16610
16611 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
16612    clock is in UTC.</li>
16613
16614 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
16615    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
16616    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
16617
16618 </ul>
16619
16620 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
16621 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
16622 Villegas</a>.
16623
16624 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
16625 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
16626 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
16627 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
16628 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
16629 using this.</p>
16630
16631 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
16632 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
16633 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
16634 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
16635 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
16636 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
16637 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
16638
16639       </div>
16640       <div class="tags">
16641
16642
16643         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>.
16644
16645
16646       </div>
16647     </div>
16648     <div class="padding"></div>
16649
16650     <div class="entry">
16651       <div class="title">
16652         <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>
16653       </div>
16654       <div class="date">
16655          2nd May 2009
16656       </div>
16657       <div class="body">
16658         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
16659 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
16660 do not yet know them.</p>
16661
16662 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
16663 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
16664 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
16665 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
16666 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
16667 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
16668 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
16669 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
16670 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
16671 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
16672 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
16673
16674 <p>The second one is
16675 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
16676 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
16677 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
16678 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
16679 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
16680 and the company behind it is running
16681 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
16682 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
16683 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
16684 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
16685 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
16686 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
16687 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
16688 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
16689
16690 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
16691 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
16692 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
16693 surrounded by today.</p>
16694
16695       </div>
16696       <div class="tags">
16697
16698
16699         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>.
16700
16701
16702       </div>
16703     </div>
16704     <div class="padding"></div>
16705
16706     <div class="entry">
16707       <div class="title">
16708         <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>
16709       </div>
16710       <div class="date">
16711         28th April 2009
16712       </div>
16713       <div class="body">
16714         <p>Julien Blache
16715 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
16716 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
16717 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
16718 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
16719 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
16720 properties.</p>
16721
16722       </div>
16723       <div class="tags">
16724
16725
16726         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>.
16727
16728
16729       </div>
16730     </div>
16731     <div class="padding"></div>
16732
16733     <div class="entry">
16734       <div class="title">
16735         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
16736       </div>
16737       <div class="date">
16738          5th April 2009
16739       </div>
16740       <div class="body">
16741         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
16742 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
16743 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
16744 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
16745 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
16746 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
16747 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
16748 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
16749
16750 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
16751 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
16752 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
16753   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
16754   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
16755
16756 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
16757 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
16758 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
16759 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
16760
16761 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
16762 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
16763 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
16764 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
16765
16766 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
16767 set -e
16768 URL="$1"
16769 SAVEFILE="$2"
16770 DURATION="$3"
16771 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
16772   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
16773   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
16774 pid=$!
16775 sleep $DURATION
16776 kill $pid
16777 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
16778
16779       </div>
16780       <div class="tags">
16781
16782
16783         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>.
16784
16785
16786       </div>
16787     </div>
16788     <div class="padding"></div>
16789
16790     <div class="entry">
16791       <div class="title">
16792         <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>
16793       </div>
16794       <div class="date">
16795         30th March 2009
16796       </div>
16797       <div class="body">
16798         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
16799 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
16800 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
16801 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
16802 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
16803 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
16804 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
16805 application.</p>
16806
16807 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
16808 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
16809 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
16810 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
16811 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
16812 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
16813 blocked from doing so.</p>
16814
16815 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
16816 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
16817 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
16818 requirements change.</p>
16819
16820 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
16821 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
16822 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
16823
16824       </div>
16825       <div class="tags">
16826
16827
16828         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>.
16829
16830
16831       </div>
16832     </div>
16833     <div class="padding"></div>
16834
16835     <div class="entry">
16836       <div class="title">
16837         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
16838       </div>
16839       <div class="date">
16840         29th March 2009
16841       </div>
16842       <div class="body">
16843         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
16844 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
16845 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
16846 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
16847 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
16848 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
16849 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
16850 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
16851 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
16852 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
16853 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
16854 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
16855 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
16856 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
16857 now. :)</p>
16858
16859       </div>
16860       <div class="tags">
16861
16862
16863         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>.
16864
16865
16866       </div>
16867     </div>
16868     <div class="padding"></div>
16869
16870     <div class="entry">
16871       <div class="title">
16872         <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>
16873       </div>
16874       <div class="date">
16875         29th March 2009
16876       </div>
16877       <div class="body">
16878         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
16879 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
16880 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
16881 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
16882 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
16883 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
16884
16885 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
16886 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
16887 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
16888 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
16889 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
16890 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
16891 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
16892 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
16893 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
16894 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
16895 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
16896 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
16897 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
16898
16899 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
16900 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
16901 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
16902 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
16903
16904 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
16905 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
16906
16907 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
16908 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
16909 new IETF work group?</p>
16910
16911       </div>
16912       <div class="tags">
16913
16914
16915         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>.
16916
16917
16918       </div>
16919     </div>
16920     <div class="padding"></div>
16921
16922     <div class="entry">
16923       <div class="title">
16924         <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>
16925       </div>
16926       <div class="date">
16927         28th February 2009
16928       </div>
16929       <div class="body">
16930         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
16931 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
16932 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
16933 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
16934 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
16935 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
16936 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
16937 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
16938 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
16939 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
16940 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
16941 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
16942 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
16943 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
16944 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
16945 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
16946 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
16947 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
16948 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
16949 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
16950 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
16951 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
16952 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
16953 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
16954 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
16955 machine.</p>
16956
16957 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
16958 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
16959 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
16960 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
16961 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
16962 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
16963 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
16964
16965 <pre>
16966 use LWP::Simple;
16967 use POSIX;
16968 use WWW::Mechanize;
16969 use Date::Parse;
16970 [...]
16971 sub get_support_info {
16972     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
16973     my $str;
16974
16975     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
16976         # fetch website from Dell support
16977         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";
16978         my $webpage = get($url);
16979         return undef unless ($webpage);
16980
16981         my $daysleft = -1;
16982         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
16983         foreach my $line (@lines) {
16984             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
16985             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
16986             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
16987
16988             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
16989             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
16990             my $lastend = "";
16991             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
16992                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
16993
16994                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
16995                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
16996                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
16997                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
16998                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
16999                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
17000                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
17001             }
17002             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
17003             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
17004                 if ($lastend lt $today);
17005         }
17006     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
17007         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
17008         my $url =
17009             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
17010         $mech->get($url);
17011         my $fields = {
17012             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
17013             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
17014             'country' => 'NO',
17015             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
17016             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
17017         };
17018         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
17019                             fields      => $fields );
17020         # Next step is screen scraping
17021         my $content = $mech->content();
17022
17023         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
17024         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
17025         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
17026         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
17027
17028         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
17029
17030         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
17031             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
17032                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
17033             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
17034             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
17035                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
17036             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
17037                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
17038
17039             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
17040
17041             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
17042                 if ($end lt $today);
17043         }
17044     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
17045         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
17046         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
17047         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
17048             my $content =
17049                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
17050             if ($content) {
17051                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
17052                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
17053                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
17054                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
17055
17056                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
17057                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
17058
17059                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
17060
17061                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
17062                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
17063                     if ($end lt $today);
17064             }
17065         }
17066     }
17067     return $str;
17068 }
17069 </pre>
17070
17071 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
17072 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
17073 from dmidecode.</p>
17074
17075 <pre>
17076 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
17077                        "447707-B21");
17078 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
17079 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
17080                        "1234567");
17081 </pre>
17082
17083 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
17084 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
17085
17086 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
17087 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
17088 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
17089 do so.</p>
17090
17091       </div>
17092       <div class="tags">
17093
17094
17095         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>.
17096
17097
17098       </div>
17099     </div>
17100     <div class="padding"></div>
17101
17102     <div class="entry">
17103       <div class="title">
17104         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
17105       </div>
17106       <div class="date">
17107         20th February 2009
17108       </div>
17109       <div class="body">
17110         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
17111 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
17112 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
17113 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
17114 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
17115 the "missing" computer.</p>
17116
17117 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
17118 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
17119 code blocks as defined in the
17120 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
17121 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
17122 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
17123 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
17124 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
17125 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
17126 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
17127 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
17128 codes.</p>
17129
17130 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
17131 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
17132 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
17133 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
17134 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
17135 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
17136
17137 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
17138 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
17139 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
17140 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
17141 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
17142 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
17143 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
17144 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
17145 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
17146 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
17147
17148 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
17149 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
17150 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
17151
17152       </div>
17153       <div class="tags">
17154
17155
17156         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>.
17157
17158
17159       </div>
17160     </div>
17161     <div class="padding"></div>
17162
17163     <div class="entry">
17164       <div class="title">
17165         <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>
17166       </div>
17167       <div class="date">
17168         17th January 2009
17169       </div>
17170       <div class="body">
17171         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
17172 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
17173 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
17174 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
17175 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
17176 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
17177 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
17178 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
17179 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
17180 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
17181 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
17182 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
17183 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
17184 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
17185
17186 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
17187 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
17188 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
17189 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
17190 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
17191 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
17192 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
17193 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
17194 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
17195 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
17196 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
17197 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
17198 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
17199 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
17200 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
17201 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
17202 playing when the download is done.</p>
17203
17204 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
17205 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
17206 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
17207 too.</p>
17208
17209 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
17210 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
17211 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
17212 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
17213
17214       </div>
17215       <div class="tags">
17216
17217
17218         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>.
17219
17220
17221       </div>
17222     </div>
17223     <div class="padding"></div>
17224
17225     <div class="entry">
17226       <div class="title">
17227         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
17228       </div>
17229       <div class="date">
17230         28th December 2008
17231       </div>
17232       <div class="body">
17233         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
17234 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
17235 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
17236 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
17237 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
17238 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
17239 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
17240 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
17241 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
17242 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
17243 source, sink and mixer applications and
17244 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
17245 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
17246 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
17247 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
17248 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
17249 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
17250 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
17251 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
17252 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
17253
17254 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
17255 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
17256 larger stick as well.</p>
17257
17258       </div>
17259       <div class="tags">
17260
17261
17262         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>.
17263
17264
17265       </div>
17266     </div>
17267     <div class="padding"></div>
17268
17269     <div class="entry">
17270       <div class="title">
17271         <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>
17272       </div>
17273       <div class="date">
17274          7th December 2008
17275       </div>
17276       <div class="body">
17277         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
17278 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
17279 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
17280 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
17281 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
17282 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
17283 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
17284 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
17285
17286 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
17287 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
17288 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
17289 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
17290 of these cards.</p>
17291
17292       </div>
17293       <div class="tags">
17294
17295
17296         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>.
17297
17298
17299       </div>
17300     </div>
17301     <div class="padding"></div>
17302
17303     <div class="entry">
17304       <div class="title">
17305         <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>
17306       </div>
17307       <div class="date">
17308         25th November 2008
17309       </div>
17310       <div class="body">
17311         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
17312 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
17313 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
17314 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
17315 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
17316 notes are available on
17317 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
17318 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
17319 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
17320 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
17321 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
17322 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
17323 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
17324 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
17325 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
17326
17327 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
17328 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
17329
17330       </div>
17331       <div class="tags">
17332
17333
17334         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>.
17335
17336
17337       </div>
17338     </div>
17339     <div class="padding"></div>
17340
17341     <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>
17342     <div id="sidebar">
17343
17344
17345
17346 <h2>Archive</h2>
17347 <ul>
17348
17349 <li>2013
17350 <ul>
17351
17352 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
17353
17354 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
17355
17356 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
17357
17358 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
17359
17360 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
17361
17362 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
17363
17364 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
17365
17366 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
17367
17368 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
17369
17370 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (3)</a></li>
17371
17372 </ul></li>
17373
17374 <li>2012
17375 <ul>
17376
17377 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
17378
17379 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
17380
17381 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
17382
17383 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
17384
17385 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
17386
17387 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
17388
17389 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
17390
17391 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
17392
17393 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
17394
17395 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
17396
17397 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
17398
17399 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
17400
17401 </ul></li>
17402
17403 <li>2011
17404 <ul>
17405
17406 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
17407
17408 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
17409
17410 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
17411
17412 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
17413
17414 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
17415
17416 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
17417
17418 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
17419
17420 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
17421
17422 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
17423
17424 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
17425
17426 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
17427
17428 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
17429
17430 </ul></li>
17431
17432 <li>2010
17433 <ul>
17434
17435 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
17436
17437 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
17438
17439 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
17440
17441 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
17442
17443 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
17444
17445 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
17446
17447 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
17448
17449 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
17450
17451 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
17452
17453 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
17454
17455 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
17456
17457 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
17458
17459 </ul></li>
17460
17461 <li>2009
17462 <ul>
17463
17464 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
17465
17466 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
17467
17468 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
17469
17470 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
17471
17472 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
17473
17474 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
17475
17476 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
17477
17478 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
17479
17480 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
17481
17482 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
17483
17484 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
17485
17486 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
17487
17488 </ul></li>
17489
17490 <li>2008
17491 <ul>
17492
17493 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
17494
17495 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
17496
17497 </ul></li>
17498
17499 </ul>
17500
17501
17502
17503 <h2>Tags</h2>
17504 <ul>
17505
17506  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
17507
17508  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
17509
17510  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
17511
17512  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
17513
17514  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (7)</a></li>
17515
17516  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
17517
17518  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
17519
17520  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (87)</a></li>
17521
17522  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (142)</a></li>
17523
17524  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
17525
17526  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
17527
17528  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
17529
17530  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (220)</a></li>
17531
17532  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
17533
17534  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
17535
17536  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
17537
17538  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (3)</a></li>
17539
17540  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
17541
17542  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (37)</a></li>
17543
17544  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
17545
17546  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
17547
17548  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
17549
17550  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
17551
17552  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
17553
17554  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
17555
17556  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (235)</a></li>
17557
17558  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (154)</a></li>
17559
17560  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (8)</a></li>
17561
17562  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
17563
17564  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (45)</a></li>
17565
17566  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (66)</a></li>
17567
17568  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
17569
17570  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
17571
17572  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
17573
17574  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (7)</a></li>
17575
17576  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
17577
17578  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
17579
17580  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
17581
17582  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (31)</a></li>
17583
17584  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
17585
17586  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
17587
17588  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (43)</a></li>
17589
17590  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
17591
17592  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (8)</a></li>
17593
17594  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (19)</a></li>
17595
17596  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
17597
17598  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
17599
17600  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (39)</a></li>
17601
17602  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
17603
17604  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (28)</a></li>
17605
17606 </ul>
17607
17608
17609     </div>
17610     <p style="text-align: right">
17611  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
17612 </p>
17613
17614   </body>
17615 </html>