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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/Norwegian_Bokm_l_subtitles_for_the_FSF_video_User_Liberation.html">Norwegian Bokmål subtitles for the FSF video User Liberation</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         12th January 2015
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>A few days ago, the <a href="https://www.fsf.org/">Free Software
  32 Foundation</a> announced a new video
  33 <a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/user-liberation-watch-and-share-our-new-video">explaining
  34 Free software</a> in simple terms.  The video named User Liberation is
  35 3 minutes long, and I recommend showing it to everyone you know as a
  36 way to explain what Free Software is all about.  Unfortunately several
  37 of the people I know do not understand English and Spanish, so it did
  38 not make sense to show it to them.</p>
  39
  40 <p>But today I was told that
  41 <a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/user-liberation-watch-and-share-our-new-video">English
  42 subtitles were available</a> and set out to provide Norwegian Bokmål
  43 subtitles based on these.  The result has been sent to FSF and made
  44 available in
  45 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/fsf-video-user-liberation-subtitles">a
  46 git repository</a> provided by Github.  Please let me know if you find
  47 errors or have improvements to the subtitles.</p>
  48
  49       </div>
  50       <div class="tags">
  51
  52
  53         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
  54
  55
  56       </div>
  57     </div>
  58     <div class="padding"></div>
  59
  60     <div class="entry">
  61       <div class="title">
  62         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Updated_version_of_the_Norwegian_web_service_FiksGataMi.html">Updated version of the Norwegian web service FiksGataMi</a>
  63       </div>
  64       <div class="date">
  65         30th December 2014
  66       </div>
  67       <div class="body">
  68         <p>I am very happy that we in the
  69 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User group (NUUG)</a>,
  70 spearheaded by Marius Halden from NUUG and Matthew Somerville from
  71 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>, finally managed to
  72 upgrade the code base for the Norwegian version of
  73 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org/">FixMyStreet</a>.  This
  74 was the first major update since 2011. The refurbished
  75 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is already live, and
  76 seem to hold up the pressure.  The
  77 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Pressemelding__FiksGataMi_i_oppdatert_og_mobilvennlig_klesdrakt.shtml">press
  78 release and announcement</a> went out this morning.</p>
  79
  80 <p>FixMyStreet is a web platform for allowing the citizens to easily
  81 report problems with public infrastructure to the responsible
  82 authorities.  Think of it as a shared mail client with map support,
  83 allowing everyone to see what already was reported and comment on the
  84 reports in public.</p>
  85
  86       </div>
  87       <div class="tags">
  88
  89
  90         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>.
  91
  92
  93       </div>
  94     </div>
  95     <div class="padding"></div>
  96
  97     <div class="entry">
  98       <div class="title">
  99         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Of_course_USA_loses_in_cyber_war___NSA_and_friends_made_sure_it_would_happen.html">Of course USA loses in cyber war - NSA and friends made sure it would happen</a>
 100       </div>
 101       <div class="date">
 102         19th December 2014
 103       </div>
 104       <div class="body">
 105         <p>So, Sony caved in
 106 (<a href="https://twitter.com/RobLowe/status/545338568512917504">according
 107 to Rob Lowe</a>) and demonstrated that America lost its first cyberwar
 108 (<a href="https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/545339074975109122">according
 109 to Newt Gingrich</a>).  It should not surprise anyone, after the
 110 whistle blower Edward Snowden documented that the government of USA
 111 and their allies for many years have done their best to make sure the
 112 technology used by its citizens is filled with security holes allowing
 113 the secret services to spy on its own population.  No one in their
 114 right minds could believe that the ability to snoop on the people all
 115 over the globe could only be used by the personnel authorized to do so
 116 by the president of the United States of America.  If the capabilities
 117 are there, they will be used by friend and foe alike, and now they are
 118 being used to bring Sony on its knees.</p>
 119
 120 <p>I doubt it will a lesson learned, and expect USA to lose its next
 121 cyber war too, given how eager the western intelligence communities
 122 (and probably the non-western too, but it is less in the news) seem to
 123 be to continue its current dragnet surveillance practice.</p>
 124
 125 <p>There is a reason why China and others are trying to move away from
 126 Windows to Linux and other alternatives, and it is not to avoid
 127 sending its hard earned dollars to Cayman Islands (or whatever
 128 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_haven">tax haven</a>
 129 Microsoft is using these days to collect the majority of its
 130 income. :)</p>
 131
 132       </div>
 133       <div class="tags">
 134
 135
 136         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 137
 138
 139       </div>
 140     </div>
 141     <div class="padding"></div>
 142
 143     <div class="entry">
 144       <div class="title">
 145         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
 146       </div>
 147       <div class="date">
 148         22nd November 2014
 149       </div>
 150       <div class="body">
 151         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
 152 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
 153 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
 154 courtesy of
 155 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
 156 Schubert</a> and
 157 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
 158 McVittie</a>.
 159
 160 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
 161 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
 162 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
 163 you upgrade:</p>
 164
 165 <p><blockquote><pre>
 166 Package: systemd-sysv
 167 Pin: release o=Debian
 168 Pin-Priority: -1
 169 </pre></blockquote><p>
 170
 171 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
 172 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
 173 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
 174 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
 175 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
 176
 177 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
 178 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
 179 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
 180 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
 181 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
 182 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
 183
 184 <p><blockquote><pre>
 185 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
 186 </pre></blockquote><p>
 187
 188 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
 189
 190 <p><blockquote><pre>
 191 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
 192 </pre></blockquote><p>
 193
 194 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
 195 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
 196
 197 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
 198 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
 199 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
 200 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
 201 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
 202 Jessie is released.</p>
 203
 204 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
 205 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
 206 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
 207 line.</p>
 208
 209       </div>
 210       <div class="tags">
 211
 212
 213         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>.
 214
 215
 216       </div>
 217     </div>
 218     <div class="padding"></div>
 219
 220     <div class="entry">
 221       <div class="title">
 222         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
 223       </div>
 224       <div class="date">
 225         10th November 2014
 226       </div>
 227       <div class="body">
 228         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
 229 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
 230 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
 231
 232 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
 233 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
 234 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
 235 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
 236 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
 237 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
 238 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
 239 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
 240 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
 241 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
 242 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
 243 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
 244 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
 245 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
 246 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
 247
 248 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
 249 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
 250 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
 251 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
 252 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
 253 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
 254 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
 255 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
 256 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
 257 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
 258 were fairly easy, and
 259 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
 260 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
 261 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
 262 useful approach.</p>
 263
 264 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
 265 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
 266 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
 267 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
 268 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
 269 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
 270 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
 271 this:</p>
 272
 273 <p><blockquote><pre>
 274 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
 275   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
 276 </pre></blockquote></p>
 277
 278 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
 279 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
 280
 281 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
 282 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
 283 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
 284 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
 285 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
 286 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
 287 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
 288 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
 289 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
 290 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
 291 system.</p>
 292
 293 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
 294 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
 295 SMTorP. :)</p>
 296
 297       </div>
 298       <div class="tags">
 299
 300
 301         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 302
 303
 304       </div>
 305     </div>
 306     <div class="padding"></div>
 307
 308     <div class="entry">
 309       <div class="title">
 310         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_released__alpha0_.html">First Jessie based Debian Edu released (alpha0)</a>
 311       </div>
 312       <div class="date">
 313         27th October 2014
 314       </div>
 315       <div class="body">
 316         <p>I am happy to report that I on behalf of the Debian Edu team just
 317 sent out
 318 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2014/10/msg00000.html">this
 319 announcement</a>:</p>
 320
 321 <pre>
 322 The Debian Edu Team is pleased to announce the release of Debian Edu
 323 Jessie 8.0+edu0~alpha0
 324
 325 Debian Edu is a complete operating system for schools. Through its
 326 various installation profiles you can install servers, workstations
 327 and laptops which will work together on the school network. With
 328 Debian Edu, the teachers themselves or their technical support can
 329 roll out a complete multi-user multi-machine study environment within
 330 hours or a few days. Debian Edu comes with hundreds of applications
 331 pre-installed, but you can always add more packages from Debian.
 332
 333 For those who want to give Debian Edu Jessie a try, download and
 334 installation instructions are available, including detailed
 335 instructions in the manual[1] explaining the first steps, such as
 336 setting up a network or adding users. Please note that the password
 337 for the user your prompted for during installation must have a length
 338 of at least 5 characters!
 339
 340  [1] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie</a> &gt;
 341
 342 Would you like to give your school's computer a longer life? Are you
 343 tired of sneaker administration, running from computer to computer
 344 reinstalling the operating system? Would you like to administrate all
 345 the computers in your school using only a couple of hours every week?
 346 Check out Debian Edu Jessie!
 347
 348 Skolelinux is used by at least two hundred schools all over the world,
 349 mostly in Germany and Norway.
 350
 351 About Debian Edu and Skolelinux
 352 ===============================
 353
 354 Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux[2], is a Linux distribution based
 355 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
 356 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
 357 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
 358 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
 359 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
 360 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
 361 machines can be installed via the network.  The provided school server
 362 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
 363 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
 364 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
 365 packages[3] and more are available from the Debian archive, and
 366 schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE, Xfce and MATE desktop
 367 environment.
 368
 369  [2] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">http://www.skolelinux.org/</a> &gt;
 370  [3] &lt;URL: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html</a> &gt;
 371
 372 Full release notes and manual
 373 =============================
 374
 375 Below the download URLs there is a list of some of the new features
 376 and bugfixes of Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie. The full
 377 list is part of the manual. (See the feature list in the manual[4] for
 378 the English version.) For some languages manual translations are
 379 available, see the manual translation overview[5].
 380
 381  [4] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features</a> &gt;
 382  [5] &lt;URL: <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/</a> &gt;
 383
 384 Where to get it
 385 ---------------
 386
 387 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release (624 MiB) you can use
 388
 389  * <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso</a>
 390  * <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso</a>
 391  * rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso .
 392
 393 The SHA1SUM of this image is: 361188818e036ce67280a572f757de82ebfeb095
 394
 395 New features for Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie released 2014-10-27
 396 ===============================================================================
 397
 398
 399 Installation changes
 400 --------------------
 401
 402  * PXE installation now installs firmware automatically for the hardware present.
 403
 404 Software updates
 405 ----------------
 406
 407 Everything which is new in Debian Jessie 8.0, eg:
 408
 409  * Linux kernel 3.16.x
 410  * Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.11.12, GNOME 3.14, Xfce 4.10,
 411    LXDE 0.5.6 and MATE 1.8 (KDE "Plasma" is installed by default; to
 412    choose one of the others see manual.)
 413  * the browsers Iceweasel 31 ESR and Chromium 38
 414  * !LibreOffice 4.3.3
 415  * GOsa 2.7.4
 416  * LTSP 5.5.4
 417  * CUPS print system 1.7.5
 418  * new boot framework: systemd
 419  * Educational toolbox GCompris 14.07
 420  * Music creator Rosegarden 14.02
 421  * Image editor Gimp 2.8.14
 422  * Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.13.0
 423  * golearn 0.9
 424  * tuxpaint 0.9.22
 425  * New version of debian-installer from Debian Jessie.
 426  * Debian Jessie includes about 42000 packages available for
 427    installation.
 428  * More information about Debian Jessie 8.0 is provided in the release
 429    notes[6] and the installation manual[7].
 430
 431  [6] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes</a> &gt;
 432  [7] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual</a> &gt;
 433
 434 Fixed bugs
 435 ----------
 436
 437  * Inserting incorrect DNS information in Gosa will no longer break
 438    DNS completely, but instead stop DNS updates until the incorrect
 439    information is corrected (Debian bug #710362)
 440  * and many others.
 441
 442 Documentation and translation updates
 443 -------------------------------------
 444
 445  * The Debian Edu Jessie Manual is fully translated to German, French,
 446    Italian, Danish and Dutch. Partly translated versions exist for
 447    Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.
 448
 449 Other changes
 450 -------------
 451
 452  * Due to new Squid settings, powering off or rebooting the main
 453    server takes more time.
 454  * To manage printers localhost:631 has to be used, currently www:631
 455    doesn't work.
 456
 457 Regressions / known problems
 458 ----------------------------
 459
 460  * Installing LTSP chroot fails with a bug related to eatmydata about
 461    exim4-config failing to run its postinst (see Debian bug #765694
 462    and Debian bug #762103).
 463  * Munin collection is not properly configured on clients (Debian bug
 464    #764594).  The fix is available in a newer version of munin-node.
 465  * PXE setup for Main Server and Thin Client Server setup does not
 466    work when installing on a machine without direct Internet access.
 467    Will be fixed when Debian bug #766960 is fixed in Jessie.
 468
 469 See the status page[8] for the complete list.
 470
 471  [8] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie</a> &gt;
 472
 473 How to report bugs
 474 ------------------
 475
 476 &lt;URL: <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a> &gt;
 477
 478 About Debian
 479 ============
 480
 481 The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
 482 free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
 483 the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
 484 volunteers from all over the world work together to create and
 485 maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a
 486 huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal
 487 operating system.
 488
 489 Contact Information
 490 For further information, please visit the Debian web pages[9] or send
 491 mail to press@debian.org.
 492
 493  [9] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a> &gt;
 494 </pre>
 495
 496       </div>
 497       <div class="tags">
 498
 499
 500         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 501
 502
 503       </div>
 504     </div>
 505     <div class="padding"></div>
 506
 507     <div class="entry">
 508       <div class="title">
 509         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_spent_last_weekend_recording_MakerCon_Nordic.html">I spent last weekend recording MakerCon Nordic</a>
 510       </div>
 511       <div class="date">
 512         23rd October 2014
 513       </div>
 514       <div class="body">
 515         <p>I spent last weekend at <a href="http://www.makercon.no/">Makercon
 516 Nordic</a>, a great conference and workshop for makers in Norway and
 517 the surrounding countries.  I had volunteered on behalf of the
 518 Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG) to video record the talks, and we
 519 had a great and exhausting time recording the entire day, two days in
 520 a row.  There were only two of us, Hans-Petter and me, and we used the
 521 regular video equipment for NUUG, with a
 522 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">dvswitch</a>, a
 523 camera and a VGA to DV convert box, and mixed video and slides
 524 live.</p>
 525
 526 <p>Hans-Petter did the post-processing, consisting of uploading the
 527 around 180 GiB of raw video to Youtube, and the result is
 528 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/">now becoming
 529 public</a> on the MakerConNordic account.  The videos have the license
 530 NUUG always use on our recordings, which is
 531 <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/no/">Creative
 532 Commons Navngivelse-Del på samme vilkår 3.0 Norge</a>.  Many great
 533 talks available.  Check it out! :)</p>
 534
 535       </div>
 536       <div class="tags">
 537
 538
 539         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>.
 540
 541
 542       </div>
 543     </div>
 544     <div class="padding"></div>
 545
 546     <div class="entry">
 547       <div class="title">
 548         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
 549       </div>
 550       <div class="date">
 551         22nd October 2014
 552       </div>
 553       <div class="body">
 554         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
 555 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
 556 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
 557 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
 558 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
 559 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
 560 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
 561 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
 562 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
 563 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
 564 lists I recently took over:</p>
 565
 566 <p><blockquote><pre>
 567 % time listadmin xiph
 568 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 569 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 570
 571 real    0m1.709s
 572 user    0m0.232s
 573 sys     0m0.012s
 574 %
 575 </pre></blockquote></p>
 576
 577 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
 578 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
 579 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
 580 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
 581 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
 582 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
 583 program.</p>
 584
 585 <p>If you install
 586 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
 587 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
 588 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
 589
 590 <p><blockquote><pre>
 591 username username@example.org
 592 spamlevel 23
 593 default discard
 594 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
 595
 596 password secret
 597 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
 598 mailman-list@lists.example.com
 599
 600 password hidden
 601 other-list@otherserver.example.org
 602 </pre></blockquote></p>
 603
 604 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
 605 learn the details.</p>
 606
 607 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
 608 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
 609 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
 610 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
 611
 612 <p><blockquote><pre>
 613 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
 614 </pre></blockquote></p>
 615
 616 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
 617 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
 618 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
 619 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
 620 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
 621 email.</p>
 622
 623 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
 624 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
 625 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
 626 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
 627 software.</p>
 628
 629 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 630 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 631 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 632
 633 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
 634 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
 635 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
 636 sure why.</p>
 637
 638       </div>
 639       <div class="tags">
 640
 641
 642         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>.
 643
 644
 645       </div>
 646     </div>
 647     <div class="padding"></div>
 648
 649     <div class="entry">
 650       <div class="title">
 651         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
 652       </div>
 653       <div class="date">
 654         17th October 2014
 655       </div>
 656       <div class="body">
 657         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
 658 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
 659 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
 660 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
 661 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
 662 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
 663 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
 664
 665 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
 666 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
 667 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
 668 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
 669 of this story.)</p>
 670
 671 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
 672 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
 673 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
 674 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
 675 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
 676 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
 677 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
 678 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
 679 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
 680 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
 681
 682 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
 683 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
 684 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
 685 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
 686
 687 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
 688 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
 689
 690 <p><blockquote><pre>
 691 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
 692 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
 693 </pre></blockquote></p>
 694
 695 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
 696 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
 697 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
 698 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
 699 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
 700 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
 701 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
 702 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
 703
 704 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
 705 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
 706
 707 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
 708 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
 709 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
 710 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
 711 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
 712
 713 <p><blockquote><pre>
 714 Task: isenkram-packages
 715 Section: hardware
 716 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 717  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 718  proposed.
 719 Test-new-install: show show
 720 Relevance: 8
 721 Packages: for-current-hardware
 722
 723 Task: isenkram-firmware
 724 Section: hardware
 725 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 726  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
 727  packages are proposed.
 728 Test-new-install: mark show
 729 Relevance: 8
 730 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
 731 </pre></blockquote></p>
 732
 733 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
 734 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
 735 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
 736 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
 737 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
 738
 739 <p><blockquote><pre>
 740 #!/bin/sh
 741 #
 742 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
 743 export PATH
 744 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 745 </pre></blockquote></p>
 746
 747 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
 748 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
 749
 750 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
 751 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
 752 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
 753 install.</p>
 754
 755 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
 756 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
 757 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
 758
 759       </div>
 760       <div class="tags">
 761
 762
 763         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
 764
 765
 766       </div>
 767     </div>
 768     <div class="padding"></div>
 769
 770     <div class="entry">
 771       <div class="title">
 772         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
 773       </div>
 774       <div class="date">
 775          4th October 2014
 776       </div>
 777       <div class="body">
 778         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
 779 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
 780 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
 781 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
 782
 783 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
 784
 785 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
 786 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
 787 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
 788
 789       </div>
 790       <div class="tags">
 791
 792
 793         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>.
 794
 795
 796       </div>
 797     </div>
 798     <div class="padding"></div>
 799
 800     <div class="entry">
 801       <div class="title">
 802         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
 803       </div>
 804       <div class="date">
 805          4th October 2014
 806       </div>
 807       <div class="body">
 808         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
 809 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
 810 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
 811 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
 812 Dibb.</p>
 813
 814 <p>I just wrapped up
 815 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
 816 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
 817 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
 818 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
 819 0.17.</p>
 820
 821 <ul>
 822
 823  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
 824  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
 825    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
 826  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
 827  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
 828  <li>Fix include orders</li>
 829  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
 830  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
 831  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
 832    the palette size is the same.</li>
 833  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
 834  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
 835  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
 836  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
 837    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
 838
 839 </ul>
 840
 841 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
 842 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
 843 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
 844
 845       </div>
 846       <div class="tags">
 847
 848
 849         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 850
 851
 852       </div>
 853     </div>
 854     <div class="padding"></div>
 855
 856     <div class="entry">
 857       <div class="title">
 858         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
 859       </div>
 860       <div class="date">
 861         26th September 2014
 862       </div>
 863       <div class="body">
 864         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 865 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
 866 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
 867 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
 868 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
 869 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
 870 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
 871 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
 872 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
 873 future.  The
 874 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
 875 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
 876 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
 877 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
 878 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
 879
 880 <p>First, download the test ISO via
 881 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
 882 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
 883 or rsync (use
 884 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
 885 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
 886 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
 887 install with some tweaking.</p>
 888
 889 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
 890 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
 891
 892 <p><blockquote><pre>
 893 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
 894 </pre></blockquote></p>
 895
 896 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
 897 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
 898 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
 899 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
 900
 901 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
 902 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
 903 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
 904 your need.</p>
 905
 906 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
 907 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
 908 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
 909 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
 910 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
 911 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
 912 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
 913 days.</p>
 914
 915 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
 916 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
 917 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
 918 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
 919 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
 920 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
 921 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
 922 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
 923 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
 924
 925 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
 926 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
 927 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
 928
 929       </div>
 930       <div class="tags">
 931
 932
 933         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>.
 934
 935
 936       </div>
 937     </div>
 938     <div class="padding"></div>
 939
 940     <div class="entry">
 941       <div class="title">
 942         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
 943       </div>
 944       <div class="date">
 945         25th September 2014
 946       </div>
 947       <div class="body">
 948         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
 949 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
 950 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
 951 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
 952 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
 953 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
 954 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
 955 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
 956 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
 957 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
 958 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
 959 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
 960 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
 961
 962 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
 963 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
 964 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
 965 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
 966 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
 967 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
 968 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
 969 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
 970 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
 971 list</a>. :)</p>
 972
 973       </div>
 974       <div class="tags">
 975
 976
 977         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 978
 979
 980       </div>
 981     </div>
 982     <div class="padding"></div>
 983
 984     <div class="entry">
 985       <div class="title">
 986         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
 987       </div>
 988       <div class="date">
 989         16th September 2014
 990       </div>
 991       <div class="body">
 992         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
 993 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
 994 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
 995 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
 996 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
 997 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
 998 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
 999 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
1000 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
1001 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
1002 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
1003 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
1004 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
1005 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
1006
1007 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
1008 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
1009 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
1010 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
1011 depend on the small and clever package
1012 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
1013 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
1014 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
1015 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
1016 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
1017 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
1018 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
1019 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
1020 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
1021 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
1022 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
1023
1024 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
1025 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
1026 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
1027 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
1028 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
1029 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
1030 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
1031 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
1032 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
1033 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
1034 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
1035 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
1036 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
1037 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
1038 dialog.</p>
1039
1040 <p><table>
1041
1042 <tr>
1043 <th>Machine/setup</th>
1044 <th>Original tasksel</th>
1045 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
1046 <th>Reduction</th>
1047 </tr>
1048
1049 <tr>
1050 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
1051 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
1052 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
1053 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
1054 </tr>
1055
1056 <tr>
1057 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
1058 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
1059 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
1060 <td>23 min 40%</td>
1061 </tr>
1062
1063 <tr>
1064 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
1065 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
1066 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
1067 <td>11 min 50%</td>
1068 </tr>
1069
1070 <tr>
1071 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
1072 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
1073 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
1074 <td>2 min 33%</td>
1075 </tr>
1076
1077 <tr>
1078 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
1079 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
1080 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
1081 <td>4 min 21%</td>
1082 </tr>
1083
1084 </table></p>
1085
1086 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
1087 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
1088 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
1089 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
1090 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
1091 installed.</p>
1092
1093 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
1094 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
1095 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
1096 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
1097 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
1098 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
1099 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
1100 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
1101 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
1102 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
1103 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
1104 for the entire installation.</p>
1105
1106 <p>I've implemented this in the
1107 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
1108 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
1109 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
1110 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
1111 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
1112
1113 <p><blockquote><pre>
1114 #!/bin/sh
1115 set -e
1116 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1117 info() {
1118     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
1119 }
1120 error() {
1121     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
1122 }
1123 override_install() {
1124     apt-install eatmydata || true
1125     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
1126         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1127             file=/usr/bin/$bin
1128             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
1129             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
1130                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
1131                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
1132                     > /target$file.edu
1133                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
1134                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1135                     --rename --quiet --add $file
1136                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
1137             else
1138                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
1139             fi
1140         done
1141     else
1142         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
1143     fi
1144 }
1145
1146 override_install
1147 </pre></blockquote></p>
1148
1149 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
1150 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
1151
1152 <p><blockquote><pre>
1153 #! /bin/sh -e
1154 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1155 error() {
1156     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
1157 }
1158 remove_install_override() {
1159     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1160         file=/usr/bin/$bin
1161         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
1162             rm /target$file
1163             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1164                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
1165             rm /target$file.edu
1166         else
1167             error "Missing divert for $file."
1168         fi
1169     done
1170     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
1171 }
1172
1173 remove_install_override
1174 </pre></blockquote></p>
1175
1176 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
1177 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
1178 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
1179
1180 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
1181 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
1182 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
1183 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
1184 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
1185 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
1186 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
1187 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
1188 everyone.</p>
1189
1190 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
1191 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
1192 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
1193 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
1194
1195 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
1196 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
1197 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
1198 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
1199 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
1200
1201 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
1202 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
1203 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
1204 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
1205 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
1206
1207       </div>
1208       <div class="tags">
1209
1210
1211         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>.
1212
1213
1214       </div>
1215     </div>
1216     <div class="padding"></div>
1217
1218     <div class="entry">
1219       <div class="title">
1220         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
1221       </div>
1222       <div class="date">
1223         10th September 2014
1224       </div>
1225       <div class="body">
1226         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
1227 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
1228 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
1229 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
1230 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
1231 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
1232 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
1233 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
1234 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
1235 those problems are gone now.</p>
1236
1237 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
1238 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
1239 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
1240 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
1241 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
1242
1243 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
1244 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
1245 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
1246
1247 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
1248 line:</p>
1249
1250 <p><blockquote><pre>
1251 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
1252 </pre></blockquote></p>
1253
1254 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
1255 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
1256 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
1257 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
1258
1259 <p><blockquote><pre>
1260 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
1261 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
1262 %
1263 </pre></blockquote></p>
1264
1265 <p>Now if only
1266 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
1267 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
1268 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
1269 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
1270 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
1271 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
1272 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
1273 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
1274 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
1275
1276       </div>
1277       <div class="tags">
1278
1279
1280         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
1281
1282
1283       </div>
1284     </div>
1285     <div class="padding"></div>
1286
1287     <div class="entry">
1288       <div class="title">
1289         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Do_you_need_an_agreement_with_MPEG_LA_to_publish_and_broadcast_H_264_video_in_Norway_.html">Do you need an agreement with MPEG-LA to publish and broadcast H.264 video in Norway?</a>
1290       </div>
1291       <div class="date">
1292         25th August 2014
1293       </div>
1294       <div class="body">
1295         <p>Two years later, I am still not sure if it is legal here in Norway
1296 to use or publish a video in H.264 or MPEG4 format edited by the
1297 commercially licensed video editors, without limiting the use to
1298 create "personal" or "non-commercial" videos or get a license
1299 agreement with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com">MPEG LA</a>.  If one
1300 want to publish and broadcast video in a non-personal or commercial
1301 setting, it might be that those tools can not be used, or that video
1302 format can not be used, without breaking their copyright license.  I
1303 am not sure.
1304 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Trenger_en_avtale_med_MPEG_LA_for___publisere_og_kringkaste_H_264_video_.html">Back
1305 then</a>, I found that the copyright license terms for Adobe Premiere
1306 and Apple Final Cut Pro both specified that one could not use the
1307 program to produce anything else without a patent license from MPEG
1308 LA.  The issue is not limited to those two products, though.  Other
1309 much used products like those from Avid and Sorenson Media have terms
1310 of use are similar to those from Adobe and Apple.  The complicating
1311 factor making me unsure if those terms have effect in Norway or not is
1312 that the patents in question are not valid in Norway, but copyright
1313 licenses are.</p>
1314
1315 <p>These are the terms for Avid Artist Suite, according to their
1316 <a href="http://www.avid.com/US/about-avid/legal-notices/legal-enduserlicense2">published
1317 end user</a>
1318 <a href="http://www.avid.com/static/resources/common/documents/corporate/LICENSE.pdf">license
1319 text</a> (converted to lower case text for easier reading):</p>
1320
1321 <p><blockquote>
1322 <p>18.2. MPEG-4. MPEG-4 technology may be included with the
1323 software. MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice: </p>
1324
1325 <p>This product is licensed under the MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio
1326 license for the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer for (i)
1327 encoding video in compliance with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4
1328 video”) and/or (ii) decoding MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a
1329 consumer engaged in a personal and non-commercial activity and/or was
1330 obtained from a video provider licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4
1331 video.  No license is granted or shall be implied for any other
1332 use. Additional information including that relating to promotional,
1333 internal and commercial uses and licensing may be obtained from MPEG
1334 LA, LLC.  See http://www.mpegla.com. This product is licensed under
1335 the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license for encoding in compliance
1336 with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except that an additional license
1337 and payment of royalties are necessary for encoding in connection with
1338 (i) data stored or replicated in physical media which is paid for on a
1339 title by title basis and/or (ii) data which is paid for on a title by
1340 title basis and is transmitted to an end user for permanent storage
1341 and/or use, such additional license may be obtained from MPEG LA,
1342 LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for additional details.</p>
1343
1344 <p>18.3. H.264/AVC. H.264/AVC technology may be included with the
1345 software.  MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice:</p>
1346
1347 <p>This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for
1348 the personal use of a consumer or other uses in which it does not
1349 receive remuneration to (i) encode video in compliance with the AVC
1350 standard (“AVC video”) and/or (ii) decode AVC video that was encoded
1351 by a consumer engaged in a personal activity and/or was obtained from
1352 a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No license is granted
1353 or shall be implied for any other use. Additional information may be
1354 obtained from MPEG LA, L.L.C. See http://www.mpegla.com.</p>
1355 </blockquote></p>
1356
1357 <p>Note the requirement that the videos created can only be used for
1358 personal or non-commercial purposes.</p>
1359
1360 <p>The Sorenson Media software have
1361 <a href="http://www.sorensonmedia.com/terms/">similar terms</a>:</p>
1362
1363 <p><blockquote>
1364
1365 <p>With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4 Video
1366 Decoders and/or Encoders: Any such product is licensed under the
1367 MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio license for the personal and
1368 non-commercial use of a consumer for (i) encoding video in compliance
1369 with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4 video”) and/or (ii) decoding
1370 MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a personal and
1371 non-commercial activity and/or was obtained from a video provider
1372 licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4 video. No license is granted or
1373 shall be implied for any other use. Additional information including
1374 that relating to promotional, internal and commercial uses and
1375 licensing may be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See
1376 http://www.mpegla.com.</p>
1377
1378 <p>With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4
1379 Consumer Recorded Data Encoder, MPEG-4 Systems Internet Data Encoder,
1380 MPEG-4 Mobile Data Encoder, and/or MPEG-4 Unique Use Encoder: Any such
1381 product is licensed under the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license
1382 for encoding in compliance with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except
1383 that an additional license and payment of royalties are necessary for
1384 encoding in connection with (i) data stored or replicated in physical
1385 media which is paid for on a title by title basis and/or (ii) data
1386 which is paid for on a title by title basis and is transmitted to an
1387 end user for permanent storage and/or use. Such additional license may
1388 be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for
1389 additional details.</p>
1390
1391 </blockquote></p>
1392
1393 <p>Some free software like
1394 <a href="https://handbrake.fr/">Handbrake</A> and
1395 <a href="http://ffmpeg.org/">FFMPEG</a> uses GPL/LGPL licenses and do
1396 not have any such terms included, so for those, there is no
1397 requirement to limit the use to personal and non-commercial.</p>
1398
1399       </div>
1400       <div class="tags">
1401
1402
1403         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1404
1405
1406       </div>
1407     </div>
1408     <div class="padding"></div>
1409
1410     <div class="entry">
1411       <div class="title">
1412         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Bernd_Zeitzen.html">Debian Edu interview: Bernd Zeitzen</a>
1413       </div>
1414       <div class="date">
1415         31st July 2014
1416       </div>
1417       <div class="body">
1418         <p>The complete and free “out of the box” software solution for
1419 schools, <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
1420 Skolelinux</a>, is used quite a lot in Germany, and one of the people
1421 involved is Bernd Zeitzen, who show up on the project mailing lists
1422 from time to time with interesting questions and tips on how to adjust
1423 the setup.  I managed to interview him this summer.</p>
1424
1425 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1426
1427 <p>My name is Bernd Zeitzen and I'm married with Hedda, a self
1428 employed physiotherapist.  My former profession is tool maker, but I
1429 haven't worked for 30 years in this job.  30 years ago I started to
1430 support my wife and become her officeworker and a few years later the
1431 administrator for a small computer network, today based on Ubuntu
1432 Server (Samba, OpenVPN). For her daily work she has to use Windows
1433 Desktops because the software she needs to organize her business only
1434 works with Windows . :-(</p>
1435
1436 <p>In 1988 we started with one PC and DOS, then I learned to use
1437 Windows 98, 2000, XP, …, 8, Ubuntu, MacOSX.  Today we are running a
1438 Linux server with 6 Windows clients and 10 persons (teacher of
1439 children with special needs, speech therapist, occupational therapist,
1440 psychologist and officeworkers) using our Samba shares via OpenVPN to
1441 work with the documentations of our patients.</p>
1442
1443 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
1444 project?</strong></p>
1445
1446 <p>Two years ago a friend of mine asked me, if I want to get a job in
1447 his school (<a href="http://www.gymnasium-harsewinkel.de/">Gymnasium
1448 Harsewinkel</a>).  They started with Skolelinux / Debian Edu and they
1449 were looking for people to give support to the teachers using the
1450 software and the network and teaching the pupils increasing their
1451 computer skills in optional lessons.  I'm spending 4-6 hours a week
1452 with this job.</p>
1453
1454 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1455 Edu?</strong></p>
1456
1457 <p>The independence.</p>
1458
1459 <p>First: Every person is allowed to use, share and develop the
1460 software. Even if you are poor, you are allowed to use the software
1461 included in Skolelinux/Debian Edu and all the other Free Software.</p>
1462
1463 <p>Second: The software runs on old machines and this gives us the
1464 possibility to recycle computers, weeded out from offices.  The
1465 servers and desktops are running for more than two years and they are
1466 working reliable. </p>
1467
1468 <p>We have two servers (one tjener and one terminal server), 45
1469 workstations in three classrooms and seven laptops as a mobile
1470 solution for all classrooms.  These machines are all booting from the
1471 terminal server.  In the moment we are installing 30 laptops as mobile
1472 workstations.  Then the pupils have the possibility to work with these
1473 machines in their classrooms.  Internet access is realized by a WLAN
1474 router, connected to the schools network. This is all done without a
1475 dedicated system administrator or a computer science teacher.</p>
1476
1477 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1478 Edu?</strong></p>
1479
1480 <p>Teachers and pupils are Windows users.  &lt;Irony on&gt; And Linux
1481 isn't cool. It's software for freaks using the command line. &lt;Irony
1482 off&gt; They don't realize the stability of the system. </p>
1483
1484 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1485
1486 <p>Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Ubuntu Server 12.04 (Samba,
1487 Apache, MySQL, Joomla!, … and Skolelinux / Debian Edu)</p>
1488
1489 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1490 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1491
1492 <p>In Germany we have the situation: every school is free to decide
1493 which software they want to use. This decision is influenced by
1494 teachers who learned to use Windows and MS Office. They buy a PC with
1495 Windows preinstalled and an additional testing version of MS
1496 Office. They don't know about the possibility to use Free Software
1497 instead.  Another problem are the publisher of school books.  They
1498 develop their software, added to the school books, for Windows.</p>
1499
1500       </div>
1501       <div class="tags">
1502
1503
1504         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1505
1506
1507       </div>
1508     </div>
1509     <div class="padding"></div>
1510
1511     <div class="entry">
1512       <div class="title">
1513         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/98_6_percent_done_with_the_Norwegian_draft_translation_of_Free_Culture.html">98.6 percent done with the Norwegian draft translation of Free Culture</a>
1514       </div>
1515       <div class="date">
1516         23rd July 2014
1517       </div>
1518       <div class="body">
1519         <p>This summer I finally had time to continue working on the Norwegian
1520 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
1521 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
1522 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with todays copyright
1523 law.  Yesterday, I finally completed translated the book text.  There
1524 are still some foot/end notes left to translate, the colophon page
1525 need to be rewritten, and a few words and phrases still need to be
1526 translated, but the Norwegian text is ready for the first proof
1527 reading. :) More spell checking is needed, and several illustrations
1528 need to be cleaned up.  The work stopped up because I had to give
1529 priority to other projects the last year, and the progress graph of
1530 the translation show this very well:</p>
1531
1532 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
1533
1534 <p>If you want to read the result, check out the
1535 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>
1536 project pages and the
1537 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>,
1538 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
1539 and HTML version available in the
1540 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/tree/master/archive">archive
1541 directory</a>.</p>
1542
1543 <p>Please report typos, bugs and improvements to the github project if
1544 you find any.</p>
1545
1546       </div>
1547       <div class="tags">
1548
1549
1550         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>.
1551
1552
1553       </div>
1554     </div>
1555     <div class="padding"></div>
1556
1557     <div class="entry">
1558       <div class="title">
1559         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
1560       </div>
1561       <div class="date">
1562         17th June 2014
1563       </div>
1564       <div class="body">
1565         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1566 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
1567 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
1568 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
1569 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
1570
1571 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
1572 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
1573 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
1574 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
1575 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
1576 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
1577 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
1578 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
1579 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
1580 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
1581 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
1582 goals.</p>
1583
1584 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
1585 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
1586 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
1587 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
1588 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
1589 chapters together into one large web page (aka
1590 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
1591 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
1592 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
1593 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
1594 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
1595 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
1596 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
1597 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
1598 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
1599 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
1600 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
1601 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
1602 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
1603 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
1604 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
1605 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
1606 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
1607 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
1608
1609 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
1610 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
1611 track the English original.  For this we use the
1612 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
1613 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
1614 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
1615 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
1616 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
1617 files), which the translations update with the native language
1618 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
1619 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
1620 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
1621 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
1622 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
1623 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
1624 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
1625 of the documentation.</p>
1626
1627 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
1628 recommend using
1629 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
1630 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
1631 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
1632 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
1633 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
1634 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
1635 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
1636 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
1637
1638 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
1639 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
1640 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
1641 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
1642 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
1643 translated images by storing translated versions in
1644 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
1645 package maintainers know more.</p>
1646
1647 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
1648 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
1649 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
1650 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
1651 PDF version</a> or the
1652 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
1653 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
1654 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
1655
1656 <p>To learn more, check out
1657 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
1658 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
1659 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
1660 manual on the wiki</a> and
1661 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
1662 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
1663
1664       </div>
1665       <div class="tags">
1666
1667
1668         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1669
1670
1671       </div>
1672     </div>
1673     <div class="padding"></div>
1674
1675     <div class="entry">
1676       <div class="title">
1677         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_car_computer_solution_.html">Free software car computer solution?</a>
1678       </div>
1679       <div class="date">
1680         29th May 2014
1681       </div>
1682       <div class="body">
1683         <p>Dear lazyweb.  I'm planning to set up a small Raspberry Pi computer
1684 in my car, connected to
1685 <a href="http://www.dx.com/p/400a-4-0-tft-lcd-digital-monitor-for-vehicle-parking-reverse-camera-1440x272-12v-dc-57776">a
1686 small screen</a> next to the rear mirror.  I plan to hook it up with a
1687 GPS and a USB wifi card too.  The idea is to get my own
1688 "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carputer">Carputer</a>".  But I
1689 wonder if someone already created a good free software solution for
1690 such car computer.</p>
1691
1692 <p>This is my current wish list for such system:</p>
1693
1694 <ul>
1695
1696  <li>Work on Raspberry Pi.</li>
1697
1698  <li>Show current speed limit based on location, and warn if going too
1699    fast (for example using color codes yellow and red on the screen,
1700    or make a sound).  This could be done either using either data from
1701    <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">Openstreetmap</a> or OCR
1702    info gathered from a dashboard camera.</li>
1703
1704  <li>Track automatic toll road passes and their cost, show total spent
1705    and make it possible to calculate toll costs for planned
1706    route.</li>
1707
1708  <li>Collect GPX tracks for use with OpenStreetMap.</li>
1709
1710  <li>Automatically detect and use any wireless connection to connect
1711    to home server.  Try IP over DNS
1712    (<a href="http://dev.kryo.se/iodine/">iodine</a>) or ICMP
1713    (<a href="http://code.gerade.org/hans/">Hans</a>) if direct
1714    connection do not work.</li>
1715
1716  <li>Set up mesh network to talk to other cars with the same system,
1717    or some standard car mesh protocol.</li>
1718
1719  <li>Warn when approaching speed cameras and speed camera ranges
1720    (speed calculated between two cameras).</li>
1721
1722  <li>Suport dashboard/front facing camera to discover speed limits and
1723    run OCR to track registration number of passing cars.</li>
1724
1725 </ul>
1726
1727 <p>If you know of any free software car computer system supporting
1728 some or all of these features, please let me know.</p>
1729
1730       </div>
1731       <div class="tags">
1732
1733
1734         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1735
1736
1737       </div>
1738     </div>
1739     <div class="padding"></div>
1740
1741     <div class="entry">
1742       <div class="title">
1743         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_the_Coverity_issues_in_Gnash_fixed_in_the_next_release.html">Half the Coverity issues in Gnash fixed in the next release</a>
1744       </div>
1745       <div class="date">
1746         29th April 2014
1747       </div>
1748       <div class="body">
1749         <p>I've been following <a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">the Gnash
1750 project</a> for quite a while now.  It is a free software
1751 implementation of Adobe Flash, both a standalone player and a browser
1752 plugin.  Gnash implement support for the AVM1 format (and not the
1753 newer AVM2 format - see
1754 <a href="http://lightspark.github.io/">Lightspark</a> for that one),
1755 allowing several flash based sites to work.  Thanks to the friendly
1756 developers at Youtube, it also work with Youtube videos, because the
1757 Javascript code at Youtube detect Gnash and serve a AVM1 player to
1758 those users. :) Would be great if someone found time to implement AVM2
1759 support, but it has not happened yet.  If you install both Lightspark
1760 and Gnash, Lightspark will invoke Gnash if it find a AVM1 flash file,
1761 so you can get both handled as free software.  Unfortunately,
1762 Lightspark so far only implement a small subset of AVM2, and many
1763 sites do not work yet.</p>
1764
1765 <p>A few months ago, I started looking at
1766 <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/">Coverity</a>, the static source
1767 checker used to find heaps and heaps of bugs in free software (thanks
1768 to the donation of a scanning service to free software projects by the
1769 company developing this non-free code checker), and Gnash was one of
1770 the projects I decided to check out.  Coverity is able to find lock
1771 errors, memory errors, dead code and more.  A few days ago they even
1772 extended it to also be able to find the heartbleed bug in OpenSSL.
1773 There are heaps of checks being done on the instrumented code, and the
1774 amount of bogus warnings is quite low compared to the other static
1775 code checkers I have tested over the years.</p>
1776
1777 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I've been working with the other Gnash
1778 developers squashing bugs discovered by Coverity.  I was quite happy
1779 today when I checked the current status and saw that of the 777 issues
1780 detected so far, 374 are marked as fixed.  This make me confident that
1781 the next Gnash release will be more stable and more dependable than
1782 the previous one.  Most of the reported issues were and are in the
1783 test suite, but it also found a few in the rest of the code.</p>
1784
1785 <p>If you want to help out, you find us on
1786 <a href="https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash-dev">the
1787 gnash-dev mailing list</a> and on
1788 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#gnash">the #gnash channel on
1789 irc.freenode.net IRC server</a>.</p>
1790
1791       </div>
1792       <div class="tags">
1793
1794
1795         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>.
1796
1797
1798       </div>
1799     </div>
1800     <div class="padding"></div>
1801
1802     <div class="entry">
1803       <div class="title">
1804         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
1805       </div>
1806       <div class="date">
1807         23rd April 2014
1808       </div>
1809       <div class="body">
1810         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
1811 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
1812 So I implemented one, using
1813 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
1814 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
1815 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
1816 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
1817 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
1818 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
1819
1820 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
1821 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
1822 packages to install.  The first part is in
1823 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
1824 this:</p>
1825
1826 <p><blockquote><pre>
1827 Task: isenkram
1828 Section: hardware
1829 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1830  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
1831  proposed.
1832 Test-new-install: mark show
1833 Relevance: 8
1834 Packages: for-current-hardware
1835 </pre></blockquote></p>
1836
1837 <p>The second part is in
1838 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
1839 this:</p>
1840
1841 <p><blockquote><pre>
1842 #!/bin/sh
1843 #
1844 (
1845     isenkram-lookup
1846     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1847 ) | sort -u
1848 </pre></blockquote></p>
1849
1850 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
1851 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
1852 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
1853 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
1854 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
1855 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
1856
1857 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
1858 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
1859 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
1860 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
1861 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
1862 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
1863 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
1864 the python-apt code (bug
1865 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
1866 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
1867 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
1868 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
1869 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
1870 unstable today.</p>
1871
1872 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
1873 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
1874 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
1875 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
1876 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
1877 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
1878 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
1879 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
1880 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
1881
1882 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
1883 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
1884 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
1885 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
1886 package.  See also
1887 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
1888 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
1889 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
1890 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
1891
1892       </div>
1893       <div class="tags">
1894
1895
1896         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>.
1897
1898
1899       </div>
1900     </div>
1901     <div class="padding"></div>
1902
1903     <div class="entry">
1904       <div class="title">
1905         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
1906       </div>
1907       <div class="date">
1908         15th April 2014
1909       </div>
1910       <div class="body">
1911         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1912 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
1913 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
1914 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
1915 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
1916 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
1917
1918 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
1919 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
1920 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
1921 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
1922 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
1923 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
1924 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
1925
1926 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
1927 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
1928 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
1929 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
1930 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
1931 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
1932 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
1933 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
1934 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
1935 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
1936 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
1937 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
1938
1939 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
1940 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
1941 become root:</p>
1942
1943 <p><pre>
1944 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1945   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1946   u-boot-tools
1947 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1948   freedom-maker
1949 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1950 </pre></p>
1951
1952 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1953 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
1954 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
1955 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
1956 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
1957 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
1958 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
1959 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
1960
1961 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1962 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1963 the preseed values:</p>
1964
1965 <p><pre>
1966 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1967 </pre></p>
1968
1969 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
1970 it still work.</p>
1971
1972 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
1973 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
1974 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
1975 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
1976 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
1977 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
1978 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
1979
1980 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1981 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1982 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1983 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1984 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1985 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1986
1987       </div>
1988       <div class="tags">
1989
1990
1991         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>.
1992
1993
1994       </div>
1995     </div>
1996     <div class="padding"></div>
1997
1998     <div class="entry">
1999       <div class="title">
2000         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
2001       </div>
2002       <div class="date">
2003          9th April 2014
2004       </div>
2005       <div class="body">
2006         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
2007 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
2008 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
2009 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
2010 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
2011 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
2012 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
2013 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
2014 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
2015 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
2016 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
2017 have looked at a system called
2018 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
2019 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
2020
2021 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
2022 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
2023 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
2024 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
2025 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
2026 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
2027 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
2028 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
2029 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
2030 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
2031 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
2032 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
2033 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
2034
2035 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
2036 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
2037 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
2038 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
2039 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
2040 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
2041 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
2042 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
2043 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
2044 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
2045 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
2046 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
2047 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
2048 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
2049 account.</p>
2050
2051 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
2052 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
2053 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
2054 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
2055 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
2056 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
2057 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
2058
2059 <p><blockquote><pre>
2060 [s3c]
2061 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
2062 backend-login: API-login
2063 backend-password: API-password
2064 fs-passphrase: local-password
2065 </pre></blockquote></p>
2066
2067 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
2068 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
2069 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
2070 details and password to create it:</p>
2071
2072 <p><blockquote><pre>
2073 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
2074 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
2075   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
2076 Enter backend login:
2077 Enter backend password:
2078 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
2079 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
2080 Enter encryption password:
2081 Confirm encryption password:
2082 Generating random encryption key...
2083 Creating metadata tables...
2084 Dumping metadata...
2085 ..objects..
2086 ..blocks..
2087 ..inodes..
2088 ..inode_blocks..
2089 ..symlink_targets..
2090 ..names..
2091 ..contents..
2092 ..ext_attributes..
2093 Compressing and uploading metadata...
2094 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
2095 # </pre></blockquote></p>
2096
2097 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
2098
2099 <p><blockquote><pre>
2100 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
2101   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
2102 Using 4 upload threads.
2103 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
2104 Reading metadata...
2105 ..objects..
2106 ..blocks..
2107 ..inodes..
2108 ..inode_blocks..
2109 ..symlink_targets..
2110 ..names..
2111 ..contents..
2112 ..ext_attributes..
2113 Mounting filesystem...
2114 # df -h /s3ql
2115 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
2116 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
2117 #
2118 </pre></blockquote></p>
2119
2120 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
2121 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
2122 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
2123 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
2124 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
2125 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
2126
2127 <p><blockquote><pre>
2128 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
2129 #
2130 </pre></blockquote></p>
2131
2132 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
2133 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
2134 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
2135 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
2136 file system:</p>
2137
2138 <p><blockquote><pre>
2139 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
2140 Using cached metadata.
2141 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
2142 Checking DB integrity...
2143 Creating temporary extra indices...
2144 Checking lost+found...
2145 Checking cached objects...
2146 Checking names (refcounts)...
2147 Checking contents (names)...
2148 Checking contents (inodes)...
2149 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
2150 Checking objects (reference counts)...
2151 Checking objects (backend)...
2152 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
2153 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
2154 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
2155 Checking objects (sizes)...
2156 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
2157 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
2158 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
2159 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
2160 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
2161 Checking inodes (sizes)...
2162 Checking extended attributes (names)...
2163 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
2164 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
2165 Checking directory reachability...
2166 Checking unix conventions...
2167 Checking referential integrity...
2168 Dropping temporary indices...
2169 Backing up old metadata...
2170 Dumping metadata...
2171 ..objects..
2172 ..blocks..
2173 ..inodes..
2174 ..inode_blocks..
2175 ..symlink_targets..
2176 ..names..
2177 ..contents..
2178 ..ext_attributes..
2179 Compressing and uploading metadata...
2180 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
2181 #
2182 </pre></blockquote></p>
2183
2184 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
2185 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
2186 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
2187 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
2188 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
2189 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
2190 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
2191 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
2192 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
2193 working set.</p>
2194
2195 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
2196 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
2197 busy:</p>
2198
2199 <p><blockquote><pre>
2200 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
2201   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
2202 Using 8 upload threads.
2203 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
2204 #
2205 </pre></blockquote></p>
2206
2207 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
2208 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
2209 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
2210 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
2211 s3qlctrl:
2212
2213 <p><blockquote><pre>
2214 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
2215 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
2216 #
2217 </pre></blockquote></p>
2218
2219 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
2220 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
2221 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
2222 a report:</p>
2223
2224 <p><blockquote><pre>
2225 # s3qlstat /s3ql
2226 Directory entries:    9141
2227 Inodes:               9143
2228 Data blocks:          8851
2229 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
2230 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
2231 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
2232 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
2233 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
2234 #
2235 </pre></blockquote></p>
2236
2237 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
2238 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
2239 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
2240 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
2241 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
2242 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
2243 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
2244 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
2245 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
2246 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
2247 best.</p>
2248
2249 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
2250 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
2251 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
2252 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
2253 poster is titled
2254 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
2255 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
2256 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
2257 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
2258 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
2259
2260 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
2261 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
2262 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
2263 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
2264 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
2265 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
2266 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
2267 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
2268
2269 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
2270 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
2271 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
2272 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
2273 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
2274 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
2275 only read from it.</p>
2276
2277 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2278 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2279 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2280
2281       </div>
2282       <div class="tags">
2283
2284
2285         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
2286
2287
2288       </div>
2289     </div>
2290     <div class="padding"></div>
2291
2292     <div class="entry">
2293       <div class="title">
2294         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ReactOS_Windows_clone___nice_free_software.html">ReactOS Windows clone - nice free software</a>
2295       </div>
2296       <div class="date">
2297          1st April 2014
2298       </div>
2299       <div class="body">
2300         <p>Microsoft have announced that Windows XP reaches its end of life
2301 2014-04-08, in 7 days.  But there are heaps of machines still running
2302 Windows XP, and depending on Windows XP to run their applications, and
2303 upgrading will be expensive, both when it comes to money and when it
2304 comes to the amount of effort needed to migrate from Windows XP to a
2305 new operating system.  Some obvious options (buy new a Windows
2306 machine, buy a MacOSX machine, install Linux on the existing machine)
2307 are already well known and covered elsewhere.  Most of them involve
2308 leaving the user applications installed on Windows XP behind and
2309 trying out replacements or updated versions. In this blog post I want
2310 to mention one strange bird that allow people to keep the hardware and
2311 the existing Windows XP applications and run them on a free software
2312 operating system that is Windows XP compatible.</p>
2313
2314 <p><a href="http://www.reactos.org/">ReactOS</a> is a free software
2315 operating system (GNU GPL licensed) working on providing a operating
2316 system that is binary compatible with Windows, able to run windows
2317 programs directly and to use Windows drivers for hardware directly.
2318 The project goal is for Windows user to keep their existing machines,
2319 drivers and software, and gain the advantages from user a operating
2320 system without usage limitations caused by non-free licensing.  It is
2321 a Windows clone running directly on the hardware, so quite different
2322 from the approach taken by <a href="http://www.winehq.org/">the Wine
2323 project</a>, which make it possible to run Windows binaries on
2324 Linux.</p>
2325
2326 <p>The ReactOS project share code with the Wine project, so most
2327 shared libraries available on Windows are already implemented already.
2328 There is also a software manager like the one we are used to on Linux,
2329 allowing the user to install free software applications with a simple
2330 click directly from the Internet.  Check out the
2331 <a href="http://www.reactos.org/screenshots">screen shots on the
2332 project web site</a> for an idea what it look like (it looks just like
2333 Windows before metro).</p>
2334
2335 <p>I do not use ReactOS myself, preferring Linux and Unix like
2336 operating systems.  I've tested it, and it work fine in a virt-manager
2337 virtual machine.  The browser, minesweeper, notepad etc is working
2338 fine as far as I can tell.  Unfortunately, my main test application
2339 is the software included on a CD with the Lego Mindstorms NXT, which
2340 seem to install just fine from CD but fail to leave any binaries on
2341 the disk after the installation.  So no luck with that test software.
2342 No idea why, but hope someone else figure out and fix the problem.
2343 I've tried the ReactOS Live ISO on a physical machine, and it seemed
2344 to work just fine.  If you like Windows and want to keep running your
2345 old Windows binaries, check it out by
2346 <a href="http://www.reactos.org/download">downloading</a> the
2347 installation CD, the live CD or the preinstalled virtual machine
2348 image.</p>
2349
2350       </div>
2351       <div class="tags">
2352
2353
2354         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos</a>.
2355
2356
2357       </div>
2358     </div>
2359     <div class="padding"></div>
2360
2361     <div class="entry">
2362       <div class="title">
2363         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Roger_Marsal.html">Debian Edu interview: Roger Marsal</a>
2364       </div>
2365       <div class="date">
2366         30th March 2014
2367       </div>
2368       <div class="body">
2369         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
2370 keep gaining new users.  Some weeks ago, a person showed up on IRC,
2371 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>, with a
2372 wish to contribute, and I managed to get a interview with this great
2373 contributor Roger Marsal to learn more about his background.</p>
2374
2375 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2376
2377 <p>My name is Roger Marsal, I'm 27 years old (1986 generation) and I
2378 live in Barcelona, Spain. I've got a strong business background and I
2379 work as a patrimony manager and as a real estate agent.  Additionally,
2380 I've co-founded a British based tech company that is nowadays on the
2381 last development phase of a new social networking concept.</p>
2382
2383 <p>I'm a Linux enthusiast that started its journey with Ubuntu four years
2384 ago and have recently switched to Debian seeking rock solid stability
2385 and as a necessary step to gain expertise.</p>
2386
2387 <p>In a nutshell, I spend my days working and learning as much as I
2388 can to face both my job, entrepreneur project and feed my Linux
2389 hunger.</p>
2390
2391 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
2392 project?</strong></p>
2393
2394 <p>I discovered the <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP</a> advantages
2395 with "Ubuntu 12.04 alternate install" and after a year of use I
2396 started looking for an alternative.  Even though I highly value and
2397 respect the Ubuntu project, I thought it was necessary for me to
2398 change to a more robust and stable alternative.  As far as I was using
2399 Debian on my personal laptop I thought it would be fine to install
2400 Debian and configure an LTSP server myself.  Surprised, I discovered
2401 that the Debian project also supported a kind of Edubuntu equivalent,
2402 and after having some pain I obtained a Debian Edu network up and
2403 running.  I just loved it.</p>
2404
2405 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2406 Edu?</strong></p>
2407
2408 <p>I found a main advantage in that, once you know "the tips and
2409 tricks", a new installation just works out of the box. It's the most
2410 complete alternative I've found to create an LTSP network. All the
2411 other distributions seems to be made of plastic, Debian Edu seems to
2412 be made of steel.</p>
2413
2414 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2415 Edu?</strong></p>
2416
2417 <p>I found two main disadvantages.</p>
2418
2419 <p>I'm not an expert but I've got notions and I had to spent a considerable
2420 amount of time trying to bring up a standard network topology. I'm quite
2421 stubborn and I just worked until I did but I'm sure many people with few
2422 resources (not big schools, but academies for example) would have switched
2423 or dropped.</p>
2424
2425 <p>It's amazing how such a complex system like Debian Edu has achieved
2426 this out-of-the-box state. Even though tweaking without breaking gets
2427 more difficult, as more factors have to be considered. This can
2428 discourage many people too.</p>
2429
2430 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2431
2432 <p>I use Debian, Firefox, Okular, Inkscape, LibreOffice and
2433 Virtualbox.</p>
2434
2435
2436 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2437 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2438
2439 <p>I don't think there is a need for a particular strategy. The free
2440 attribute in both "freedom" and "no price" meanings is what will
2441 really bring free software to schools. In my experience I can think of
2442 the <a href="http://www.r-project.org/">"R" statistical language</a>; a
2443 few years a ago was an extremely nerd tool for university people.
2444 Today it's being increasingly used to teach statistics at many
2445 different level of studies.  I believe free and open software will
2446 increasingly gain popularity, but I'm sure schools will be one of the
2447 first scenarios where this will happen.</p>
2448
2449       </div>
2450       <div class="tags">
2451
2452
2453         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
2454
2455
2456       </div>
2457     </div>
2458     <div class="padding"></div>
2459
2460     <div class="entry">
2461       <div class="title">
2462         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Public_Trusted_Timestamping_services_for_everyone.html">Public Trusted Timestamping services for everyone</a>
2463       </div>
2464       <div class="date">
2465         25th March 2014
2466       </div>
2467       <div class="body">
2468         <p>Did you ever need to store logs or other files in a way that would
2469 allow it to be used as evidence in court, and needed a way to
2470 demonstrate without reasonable doubt that the file had not been
2471 changed since it was created?  Or, did you ever need to document that
2472 a given document was received at some point in time, like some
2473 archived document or the answer to an exam, and not changed after it
2474 was received?  The problem in these settings is to remove the need to
2475 trust yourself and your computers, while still being able to prove
2476 that a file is the same as it was at some given time in the past.</p>
2477
2478 <p>A solution to these problems is to have a trusted third party
2479 "stamp" the document and verify that at some given time the document
2480 looked a given way.  Such
2481 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notarius">notarius</a> service
2482 have been around for thousands of years, and its digital equivalent is
2483 called a
2484 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping">trusted
2485 timestamping service</a>.  <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">The Internet
2486 Engineering Task Force</a> standardised how such service could work a
2487 few years ago as <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3161">RFC
2488 3161</a>.  The mechanism is simple.  Create a hash of the file in
2489 question, send it to a trusted third party which add a time stamp to
2490 the hash and sign the result with its private key, and send back the
2491 signed hash + timestamp.  Both email, FTP and HTTP can be used to
2492 request such signature, depending on what is provided by the service
2493 used. Anyone with the document and the signature can then verify that
2494 the document matches the signature by creating their own hash and
2495 checking the signature using the trusted third party public key.
2496 There are several commercial services around providing such
2497 timestamping.  A quick search for
2498 "<a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rfc+3161+service">rfc 3161
2499 service</a>" pointed me to at least
2500 <a href="https://www.digistamp.com/technical/how-a-digital-time-stamp-works/">DigiStamp</a>,
2501 <a href="http://www.quovadisglobal.co.uk/CertificateServices/SigningServices/TimeStamp.aspx">Quo
2502 Vadis</a>,
2503 <a href="https://www.globalsign.com/timestamp-service/">Global Sign</a>
2504 and <a href="http://www.globaltrustfinder.com/TSADefault.aspx">Global
2505 Trust Finder</a>.  The system work as long as the private key of the
2506 trusted third party is not compromised.</p>
2507
2508 <p>But as far as I can tell, there are very few public trusted
2509 timestamp services available for everyone.  I've been looking for one
2510 for a while now. But yesterday I found one over at
2511 <a href="https://www.pki.dfn.de/zeitstempeldienst/">Deutches
2512 Forschungsnetz</a> mentioned in
2513 <a href="http://www.d-mueller.de/blog/dealing-with-trusted-timestamps-in-php-rfc-3161/">a
2514 blog by David Müller</a>.  I then found
2515 <a href="http://www.rz.uni-greifswald.de/support/dfn-pki-zertifikate/zeitstempeldienst.html">a
2516 good recipe on how to use the service</a> over at the University of
2517 Greifswald.</p>
2518
2519 <p><a href="http://www.openssl.org/">The OpenSSL library</a> contain
2520 both server and tools to use and set up your own signing service.  See
2521 the ts(1SSL), tsget(1SSL) manual pages for more details.  The
2522 following shell script demonstrate how to extract a signed timestamp
2523 for any file on the disk in a Debian environment:</p>
2524
2525 <p><blockquote><pre>
2526 #!/bin/sh
2527 set -e
2528 url="http://zeitstempel.dfn.de"
2529 caurl="https://pki.pca.dfn.de/global-services-ca/pub/cacert/chain.txt"
2530 reqfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsq)
2531 resfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsr)
2532 cafile=chain.txt
2533 if [ ! -f $cafile ] ; then
2534     wget -O $cafile "$caurl"
2535 fi
2536 openssl ts -query -data "$1" -cert | tee "$reqfile" \
2537     | /usr/lib/ssl/misc/tsget -h "$url" -o "$resfile"
2538 openssl ts -reply -in "$resfile" -text 1>&2
2539 openssl ts -verify -data "$1" -in "$resfile" -CAfile "$cafile" 1>&2
2540 base64 < "$resfile"
2541 rm "$reqfile" "$resfile"
2542 </pre></blockquote></p>
2543
2544 <p>The argument to the script is the file to timestamp, and the output
2545 is a base64 encoded version of the signature to STDOUT and details
2546 about the signature to STDERR.  Note that due to
2547 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=742553">a bug
2548 in the tsget script</a>, you might need to modify the included script
2549 and remove the last line.  Or just write your own HTTP uploader using
2550 curl. :) Now you too can prove and verify that files have not been
2551 changed.</p>
2552
2553 <p>But the Internet need more public trusted timestamp services.
2554 Perhaps something for <a href="http://www.uninett.no/">Uninett</a> or
2555 my work place the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
2556 to set up?</p>
2557
2558       </div>
2559       <div class="tags">
2560
2561
2562         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
2563
2564
2565       </div>
2566     </div>
2567     <div class="padding"></div>
2568
2569     <div class="entry">
2570       <div class="title">
2571         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Video_DVD_reader_library___python_dvdvideo___nice_free_software.html">Video DVD reader library / python-dvdvideo - nice free software</a>
2572       </div>
2573       <div class="date">
2574         21st March 2014
2575       </div>
2576       <div class="body">
2577         <p>Keeping your DVD collection safe from scratches and curious
2578 children fingers while still having it available when you want to see a
2579 movie is not straight forward.  My preferred method at the moment is
2580 to store a full copy of the ISO on a hard drive, and use VLC, Popcorn
2581 Hour or other useful players to view the resulting file.  This way the
2582 subtitles and bonus material are still available and using the ISO is
2583 just like inserting the original DVD record in the DVD player.</p>
2584
2585 <p>Earlier I used dd for taking security copies, but it do not handle
2586 DVDs giving read errors (which are quite a few of them).  I've also
2587 tried using
2588 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">dvdbackup
2589 and genisoimage</a>, but these days I use the marvellous python library
2590 and program
2591 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">python-dvdvideo</a>
2592 written by Bastian Blank.  It is
2593 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/python-dvdvideo.html">in Debian
2594 already</a> and the binary package name is python3-dvdvideo. Instead
2595 of trying to read every block from the DVD, it parses the file
2596 structure and figure out which block on the DVD is actually in used,
2597 and only read those blocks from the DVD.  This work surprisingly well,
2598 and I have been able to almost backup my entire DVD collection using
2599 this method.</p>
2600
2601 <p>So far, python-dvdvideo have failed on between 10 and
2602 20 DVDs, which is a small fraction of my collection.  The most common
2603 problem is
2604 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=720831">DVDs
2605 using UTF-16 instead of UTF-8 characters</a>, which according to
2606 Bastian is against the DVD specification (and seem to cause some
2607 players to fail too).  A rarer problem is what seem to be inconsistent
2608 DVD structures, as the python library
2609 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=723079">claim
2610 there is a overlap between objects</a>.  An equally rare problem claim
2611 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=741878">some
2612 value is out of range</a>.  No idea what is going on there.  I wish I
2613 knew enough about the DVD format to fix these, to ensure my movie
2614 collection will stay with me in the future.</p>
2615
2616 <p>So, if you need to keep your DVDs safe, back them up using
2617 python-dvdvideo. :)</p>
2618
2619       </div>
2620       <div class="tags">
2621
2622
2623         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2624
2625
2626       </div>
2627     </div>
2628     <div class="padding"></div>
2629
2630     <div class="entry">
2631       <div class="title">
2632         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
2633       </div>
2634       <div class="date">
2635         14th March 2014
2636       </div>
2637       <div class="body">
2638         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
2639 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
2640 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
2641 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
2642 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
2643 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
2644 release (0.2).</p>
2645
2646 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
2647 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
2648 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
2649 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
2650 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
2651 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
2652 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
2653 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
2654 and build using
2655 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
2656 with a user with sudo access to become root:
2657
2658 <pre>
2659 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
2660   freedom-maker
2661 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
2662   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
2663   u-boot-tools
2664 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
2665 </pre>
2666
2667 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
2668 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
2669 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
2670 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
2671 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
2672 kpartx call.</p>
2673
2674 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
2675 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
2676 the preseed values:</p>
2677
2678 <pre>
2679 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
2680 </pre>
2681
2682 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
2683 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
2684 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
2685 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
2686 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
2687 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
2688
2689 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
2690 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
2691 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
2692 irc.debian.org)</a> and
2693 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2694 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2695
2696       </div>
2697       <div class="tags">
2698
2699
2700         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>.
2701
2702
2703       </div>
2704     </div>
2705     <div class="padding"></div>
2706
2707     <div class="entry">
2708       <div class="title">
2709         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_add_extra_storage_servers_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">How to add extra storage servers in Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
2710       </div>
2711       <div class="date">
2712         12th March 2014
2713       </div>
2714       <div class="body">
2715         <p>On larger sites, it is useful to use a dedicated storage server for
2716 storing user home directories and data.  The design for handling this
2717 in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, is
2718 to update the automount rules in LDAP and let the automount daemon on
2719 the clients take care of the rest.  I was reminded about the need to
2720 document this better when one of the customers of
2721 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a>, where I am
2722 on the board of directors, asked about how to do this.  The steps to
2723 get this working are the following:</p>
2724
2725 <p><ol>
2726
2727 <li>Add new storage server in DNS.  I use nas-server.intern as the
2728 example host here.</li>
2729
2730 <li>Add automoun LDAP information about this server in LDAP, to allow
2731 all clients to automatically mount it on reqeust.</li>
2732
2733 <li>Add the relevant entries in tjener.intern:/etc/fstab, because
2734 tjener.intern do not use automount to avoid mounting loops.</li>
2735
2736 </ol></p>
2737
2738 <p>DNS entries are added in GOsa², and not described here.  Follow the
2739 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/GettingStarted">instructions
2740 in the manual</a> (Machine Management with GOsa² in section Getting
2741 started).</p>
2742
2743 <p>Ensure that the NFS export points on the server are exported to the
2744 relevant subnets or machines:</p>
2745
2746 <p><blockquote><pre>
2747 root@tjener:~# showmount -e nas-server
2748 Export list for nas-server:
2749 /storage         10.0.0.0/8
2750 root@tjener:~#
2751 </pre></blockquote></p>
2752
2753 <p>Here everything on the backbone network is granted access to the
2754 /storage export.  With NFSv3 it is slightly better to limit it to
2755 netgroup membership or single IP addresses to have some limits on the
2756 NFS access.</p>
2757
2758 <p>The next step is to update LDAP.  This can not be done using GOsa²,
2759 because it lack a module for automount.  Instead, use ldapvi and add
2760 the required LDAP objects using an editor.</p>
2761
2762 <p><blockquote><pre>
2763 ldapvi --ldap-conf -ZD '(cn=admin)' -b ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
2764 </pre></blockquote></p>
2765
2766 <p>When the editor show up, add the following LDAP objects at the
2767 bottom of the document.  The "/&" part in the last LDAP object is a
2768 wild card matching everything the nas-server exports, removing the
2769 need to list individual mount points in LDAP.</p>
2770
2771 <p><blockquote><pre>
2772 add cn=nas-server,ou=auto.skole,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
2773 objectClass: automount
2774 cn: nas-server
2775 automountInformation: -fstype=autofs --timeout=60 ldap:ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
2776
2777 add ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
2778 objectClass: top
2779 objectClass: automountMap
2780 ou: auto.nas-server
2781
2782 add cn=/,ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
2783 objectClass: automount
2784 cn: /
2785 automountInformation: -fstype=nfs,tcp,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,rw,intr,hard,nodev,nosuid,noatime nas-server.intern:/&
2786 </pre></blockquote></p>
2787
2788 <p>The last step to remember is to mount the relevant mount points in
2789 tjener.intern by adding them to /etc/fstab, creating the mount
2790 directories using mkdir and running "mount -a" to mount them.</p>
2791
2792 <p>When this is done, your users should be able to access the files on
2793 the storage server directly by just visiting the
2794 /tjener/nas-server/storage/ directory using any application on any
2795 workstation, LTSP client or LTSP server.</p>
2796
2797       </div>
2798       <div class="tags">
2799
2800
2801         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
2802
2803
2804       </div>
2805     </div>
2806     <div class="padding"></div>
2807
2808     <div class="entry">
2809       <div class="title">
2810         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
2811       </div>
2812       <div class="date">
2813         22nd February 2014
2814       </div>
2815       <div class="body">
2816         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
2817 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
2818 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
2819 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
2820 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
2821 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
2822 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
2823 proper home since then.</p>
2824
2825 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
2826 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
2827 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
2828 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
2829 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
2830
2831 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
2832 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
2833 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
2834 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
2835 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
2836 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
2837 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
2838 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
2839 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
2840
2841       </div>
2842       <div class="tags">
2843
2844
2845         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>.
2846
2847
2848       </div>
2849     </div>
2850     <div class="padding"></div>
2851
2852     <div class="entry">
2853       <div class="title">
2854         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
2855       </div>
2856       <div class="date">
2857          3rd February 2014
2858       </div>
2859       <div class="body">
2860         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
2861 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
2862 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
2863 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
2864 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
2865 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
2866 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
2867 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
2868 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
2869
2870 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
2871 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
2872 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
2873 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
2874 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
2875 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
2876
2877 <p><blockquote><pre>
2878 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
2879 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
2880 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
2881 dhclient /dev/eth0
2882 </pre></blockquote></p>
2883
2884 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
2885 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
2886 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
2887
2888 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
2889 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
2890 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
2891 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
2892 side.</p>
2893
2894 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
2895 stuff:</p>
2896
2897 <p><blockquote><pre>
2898 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
2899 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
2900 EOF
2901 apt-get update
2902 apt-get dist-upgrade
2903 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
2904     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
2905 update-alternatives --config runsystem
2906 </pre></blockquote></p>
2907
2908 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
2909 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
2910 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
2911 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
2912 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
2913 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
2914 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
2915 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
2916 ssh instead.
2917
2918 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
2919 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
2920 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
2921 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
2922 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
2923 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
2924
2925 <p><blockquote><pre>
2926 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
2927 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
2928 EOF
2929 </pre></blockquote></p>
2930
2931 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
2932 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
2933 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
2934 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
2935
2936 <p><blockquote><pre>
2937 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
2938 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
2939 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
2940 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
2941 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
2942 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
2943 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
2944 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
2945 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
2946 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
2947 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
2948 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
2949 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
2950 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
2951 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
2952 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
2953 #
2954 </pre></blockquote></p>
2955
2956 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
2957 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
2958 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
2959 command line stuff.<p>
2960
2961       </div>
2962       <div class="tags">
2963
2964
2965         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>.
2966
2967
2968       </div>
2969     </div>
2970     <div class="padding"></div>
2971
2972     <div class="entry">
2973       <div class="title">
2974         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_fist_full_of_non_anonymous_Bitcoins.html">A fist full of non-anonymous Bitcoins</a>
2975       </div>
2976       <div class="date">
2977         29th January 2014
2978       </div>
2979       <div class="body">
2980         <p>Bitcoin is a incredible use of peer to peer communication and
2981 encryption, allowing direct and immediate money transfer without any
2982 central control.  It is sometimes claimed to be ideal for illegal
2983 activity, which I believe is quite a long way from the truth.  At least
2984 I would not conduct illegal money transfers using a system where the
2985 details of every transaction are kept forever.  This point is
2986 investigated in
2987 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">USENIX ;login:</a>
2988 from December 2013, in the article
2989 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/03_meiklejohn-online.pdf">A
2990 Fistful of Bitcoins - Characterizing Payments Among Men with No
2991 Names</a>" by Sarah Meiklejohn, Marjori Pomarole,Grant Jordan, Kirill
2992 Levchenko, Damon McCoy, Geoffrey M. Voelker, and Stefan Savage.  They
2993 analyse the transaction log in the Bitcoin system, using it to find
2994 addresses belong to individuals and organisations and follow the flow
2995 of money from both Bitcoin theft and trades on Silk Road to where the
2996 money end up.  This is how they wrap up their article:</p>
2997
2998 <p><blockquote>
2999 <p>"To demonstrate the usefulness of this type of analysis, we turned
3000 our attention to criminal activity. In the Bitcoin economy, criminal
3001 activity can appear in a number of forms, such as dealing drugs on
3002 Silk Road or simply stealing someone else’s bitcoins. We followed the
3003 flow of bitcoins out of Silk Road (in particular, from one notorious
3004 address) and from a number of highly publicized thefts to see whether
3005 we could track the bitcoins to known services. Although some of the
3006 thieves attempted to use sophisticated mixing techniques (or possibly
3007 mix services) to obscure the flow of bitcoins, for the most part
3008 tracking the bitcoins was quite straightforward, and we ultimately saw
3009 large quantities of bitcoins flow to a variety of exchanges directly
3010 from the point of theft (or the withdrawal from Silk Road).</p>
3011
3012 <p>As acknowledged above, following stolen bitcoins to the point at
3013 which they are deposited into an exchange does not in itself identify
3014 the thief; however, it does enable further de-anonymization in the
3015 case in which certain agencies can determine (through, for example,
3016 subpoena power) the real-world owner of the account into which the
3017 stolen bitcoins were deposited.  Because such exchanges seem to serve
3018 as chokepoints into and out of the Bitcoin economy (i.e., there are
3019 few alternative ways to cash out), we conclude that using Bitcoin for
3020 money laundering or other illicit purposes does not (at least at
3021 present) seem to be particularly attractive."</p>
3022 </blockquote><p>
3023
3024 <p>These researches are not the first to analyse the Bitcoin
3025 transaction log.  The 2011 paper
3026 "<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.4524">An Analysis of Anonymity in
3027 the Bitcoin System</A>" by Fergal Reid and Martin Harrigan is
3028 summarized like this:</p>
3029
3030 <p><blockquote>
3031 "Anonymity in Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic currency system, is a
3032 complicated issue. Within the system, users are identified by
3033 public-keys only. An attacker wishing to de-anonymize its users will
3034 attempt to construct the one-to-many mapping between users and
3035 public-keys and associate information external to the system with the
3036 users. Bitcoin tries to prevent this attack by storing the mapping of
3037 a user to his or her public-keys on that user's node only and by
3038 allowing each user to generate as many public-keys as required. In
3039 this chapter we consider the topological structure of two networks
3040 derived from Bitcoin's public transaction history. We show that the
3041 two networks have a non-trivial topological structure, provide
3042 complementary views of the Bitcoin system and have implications for
3043 anonymity. We combine these structures with external information and
3044 techniques such as context discovery and flow analysis to investigate
3045 an alleged theft of Bitcoins, which, at the time of the theft, had a
3046 market value of approximately half a million U.S. dollars."
3047 </blockquote></p>
3048
3049 <p>I hope these references can help kill the urban myth that Bitcoin
3050 is anonymous.  It isn't really a good fit for illegal activites.  Use
3051 cash if you need to stay anonymous, at least until regular DNA
3052 sampling of notes and coins become the norm. :)</p>
3053
3054 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3055 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3056 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3057
3058       </div>
3059       <div class="tags">
3060
3061
3062         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix</a>.
3063
3064
3065       </div>
3066     </div>
3067     <div class="padding"></div>
3068
3069     <div class="entry">
3070       <div class="title">
3071         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
3072       </div>
3073       <div class="date">
3074         14th January 2014
3075       </div>
3076       <div class="body">
3077         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
3078 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
3079 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
3080 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
3081 the source.  The company behind it provide
3082 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
3083 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
3084 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
3085 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
3086 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
3087 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
3088 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
3089 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
3090 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
3091 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
3092 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
3093 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
3094 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
3095 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
3096 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
3097 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
3098 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
3099 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
3100 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
3101
3102 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
3103
3104 <ul>
3105
3106   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
3107   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
3108   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
3109
3110 </ul>
3111
3112 <p>You can
3113 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
3114 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
3115 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
3116 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
3117 include a test suite check.</p>
3118
3119       </div>
3120       <div class="tags">
3121
3122
3123         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3124
3125
3126       </div>
3127     </div>
3128     <div class="padding"></div>
3129
3130     <div class="entry">
3131       <div class="title">
3132         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Dominik_George.html">Debian Edu interview: Dominik George</a>
3133       </div>
3134       <div class="date">
3135         25th December 2013
3136       </div>
3137       <div class="body">
3138         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3139 project</a> consist of both newcomers and old timers, and this time I
3140 was able to get an interview with a newcomer in the project who showed
3141 up on the IRC channel a few weeks ago to let us know about his
3142 successful installation of Debian Edu Wheezy in his School.  Say hello
3143 to <a href="https://www.ohloh.net/accounts/Natureshadow">Dominik
3144 George</a>.</p>
3145
3146 <!-- http://www.dominik-george.de/images/foto.jpg -->
3147
3148 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3149
3150 <p>I am a 23 year-old student from Germany who has spent half of his
3151 life with open source. In "real life", I am, as already mentioned, a
3152 student in the fields of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering,
3153 Information Technologies and Anglistics. Due to my (only partially
3154 voluntary) huge engagement in the open source world, these things are
3155 a bit vacant right now however.</p>
3156
3157 <p>I also have been working as a project teacher at a Gymasnium
3158 (public school) for various years now. I took up that work some time
3159 around 2005 when still attending that school myself and have continued
3160 it until today. I also had been running the (kind of very advanced)
3161 network of that school together with a team of very interested and
3162 talented students in the age of 11 to 15 years, who took the chance to
3163 learn a lot about open source and networking before I left the school
3164 to help building another school's informational education concept from
3165 scratch.</p>
3166
3167 <p>That said, one might see me as a kind of "glue" between school kids
3168 and the elderly of teachers as well as between the open source
3169 ecosystem and the (even more complex) educational ecosystem.</p>
3170
3171 <p>When I am not busy with open source or education, I like Geocaching
3172 and cycling.</p>
3173
3174 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
3175 project?</strong></p>
3176
3177 <p>I think that happened some time around 2009 when I first attended
3178 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">FrOSCon</a> and visited the project
3179 booth. I think I wasn't too interested back then because I used to
3180 have an attitude of disliking software that does too much stuff on its
3181 own. Maybe I was too inexperienced to realise the upsides of an
3182 "out-of-the-box" solution ;).</p>
3183
3184 <p>The first time I actively talked to Skolelinux people was at
3185 <a href="http://www.openrheinruhr.de">OpenRheinRuhr</a> 2011 when the
3186 BiscuIT project, a home-grewn software used by my school for various
3187 really cool things from timetables and class contact lists to lunch
3188 ordering, student ID card printing and project elections first got to
3189 a stage where it could have been published. I asked the Skolelinux
3190 guys running the booth if the project were interested in it and gave a
3191 small demonstration, but there wasn't any real feedback and the guys
3192 seemed rather uninterested.</p>
3193
3194 <p>After I left the school where I developed the software, it got
3195 mostly lost, but I am now reimplementing it for my new school. I have
3196 reusability and compatibility in mind, and I hop there will be a new
3197 basis for contributing it to the Skolelinux project ;)!</p>
3198
3199 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3200 Edu?</strong></p>
3201
3202 <p>The most important advantage seems to be that it "just
3203 works". After overcoming some minor (but still very annoying) glitches
3204 in the installer, I got a fully functional, working school network,
3205 without the month-long hassle I experienced when setting all that up
3206 from scratch in earlier years. And above that, it rocked - I didn't
3207 have any real hardware at hand, because the school was just founded
3208 and has no money whatsoever, so I installed a combined server (main
3209 server, terminal services and workstation) in a VM on my personal
3210 notebook, bridging the LTSP network interface to the ethernet port,
3211 and then PXE-booted the Windows notebooks that were lying around from
3212 it. I could use 8 clients without any performance issues, by using a
3213 tiny little VM on a tiny little notebook. I think that's enough to say
3214 that it rocks!</p>
3215
3216 <p>Secondly, there are marketing reasons. Life's bad, and so no
3217 politician will ever permit a setup described as "Debian, an universal
3218 operating system, with some really cool educational tools" while they
3219 will be jsut fine with "Skolelinux, a single-purpose solution for your
3220 school network", even if both turn out to be the very same thing (yes,
3221 this is unfair towards the Skolelinux project, and must not be taken
3222 too seriously - you get the idea, anyway).</p>
3223
3224 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3225 Edu?</strong></p>
3226
3227 <p>I have not been involved with Skolelinux long enough to really
3228 answer this question in a fair way. Thus, please allow me to put it in
3229 other words: "What do you expect from Skolelinux to keep liking it?" I
3230 can list a few points about that:</p>
3231
3232 <ul>
3233
3234  <li>always strive to get all things integrated into Debian upstream
3235  <li>be open to discussion about changes and the like, even with newcomers
3236  <li>be helpful at being helpful ;)
3237
3238 </ul>
3239
3240 <p>I'm really sorry I cannot say much more about that :(!</p>
3241
3242 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3243
3244 <p>First of all, all software I use is free and open. I have abandoned
3245 all non-free software (except for firmware on my darned phone) this
3246 year.</p>
3247
3248 <p>I run Debian GNU/Linux on all PC systems I use. On that, I mostly
3249 run text tools. I use
3250 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm">mksh</a> as shell,
3251 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/jupp.htm">jupp</a> as very advanced
3252 text editor (I even got the developer to help me write a script/macro
3253 based full-featured student management software with the two),
3254 <a href="http://mcabber.com/">mcabber</a> for XMPP and
3255 <a href="http://www.irssi.org/">irssi</a> for IRC. For that overly
3256 coloured world called the WWW, I use
3257 <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">Iceweasel
3258 (Firefox)</a>. Oh, and <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a> for
3259 e-mail.</p>
3260
3261 <p>However, while I am personally aware of the fact that text tools
3262 are more efficient and powerful than anything else, I also use (or at
3263 least operate) some tools that are suitable to bring open source to
3264 kids. One of these things is <a href="http://jappix.org/">Jappix</a>,
3265 which I already introduced to some kids even before they got aware of
3266 Facebook, making them see for themselves that they do not need
3267 Facebook now ;).</p>
3268
3269 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3270 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3271
3272 <p>Well, that's a two-sided thing. One side is what I believe, and one
3273 side is what I have experienced.</p>
3274
3275 <p>I believe that the right strategy is showing them the benefits. But
3276 that won't work out as long as the acceptance of free alternatives
3277 grows globally. What I mean is that if all the kids are almost forced
3278 to use Windows, Facebook, Skype, you name it at home, they will not
3279 see why they would want to use alternatives at school. I have seen
3280 students take seat in front of a fully-functional, modern Debian
3281 desktop that could do anything their Windows at home could do, and
3282 they jsut refused to use it because "Linux sucks". It is something
3283 that makes the council of our city spend around 600000 € to buy
3284 software - not including hardware, mind you - for operating school
3285 networks, and for installing a system that, as has been proved, does
3286 not work. For those of you readers who are good at maths, have you
3287 already found out how many lives could have been saved with that money
3288 if we had instead used it to bring education to parts of the world
3289 that need it? I have, and found it to be nothing less dramatic than
3290 plain criminal.</p>
3291
3292 <p>That said, the only feasible way appears to be the bottom up
3293 method. We have to bring free software to kids and parents. I have
3294 founded an association named
3295 <a href="https://www.teckids.org">Teckids</a> here in Germany that does
3296 just that. We organise several events for kids and adolescents in the
3297 area of free and open source software, for example the
3298 <a href="http://kids.froscon.org">FrogLabs</a>, which share staff with
3299 Teckids and are the youth programme of
3300 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">the Free and Open Source Software
3301 Conference (FrOSCon)</a>. We do a lot more than most other conferences
3302 - this year, we first offered the FrogLabs as a holiday camp for kids
3303 aged 10 to 16. It was a huge success, with approx. 30 kids taking part
3304 and learning with and about free software through a whole weekend. All
3305 of us had a lot of fun, and the results were really exciting.</p>
3306
3307 <p>Apart from that, we are preparing a campaign that is supposed to bring
3308 the message of free alternatives to stuff kids use every day to them and
3309 their parents, e.g. the use of Jabber / Jappix instead of Facebook and
3310 Skype. To make that possible, we are planning to get together a team of
3311 clever kids who understand very well what their peers need and can bring
3312 it across to them. So we will have a peer-driven network of adolescents
3313 who teach each other and collect feedback from the community of minors.
3314 We then take that feedback and our own experience to work closely with
3315 open source projects, such as Skolelinux or Jappix, at improving their
3316 software in a way that makes it more and more attractive for the target
3317 group. At least I hope that we will have good cooperation with
3318 Skolelinux in the future ;)!</p>
3319
3320 <p>So in conclusion, what I believe is that, if it weren't for the world
3321 being so bad, it should be very clear to the political decision makers
3322 that the only way to go nowadays is free software for various reasons,
3323 but I have learnt that the only way that seems to work is bottom up.</p>
3324
3325 <!--
3326
3327 >  * Who should be interviewed with this questions in the future?
3328
3329 That's probably the hardest question of them all, as I do not know the
3330 community. However, I would be willing to do the following:
3331
3332  <li>Run an interview with a German headteacher who is very open to
3333    free software, and also prefers it, but cannot really use it because
3334    of the decision makers above;
3335  <li>Run interviews with some kids, both with and without previous
3336    knowledge about free software
3337
3338 If that is wanted, just let me know ;).
3339
3340 -->
3341
3342       </div>
3343       <div class="tags">
3344
3345
3346         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
3347
3348
3349       </div>
3350     </div>
3351     <div class="padding"></div>
3352
3353     <div class="entry">
3354       <div class="title">
3355         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Klaus_Knopper.html">Debian Edu interview: Klaus Knopper</a>
3356       </div>
3357       <div class="date">
3358          6th December 2013
3359       </div>
3360       <div class="body">
3361         <p>It has been a while since I managed to publish the last interview,
3362 but the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
3363 Skolelinux</a> community is still going strong, and yesterday we even
3364 had a new school administrator show up on
3365 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a> to share
3366 his success story with installing Debian Edu at their school.  This
3367 time I have been able to get some helpful comments from the creator of
3368 Knoppix, Klaus Knopper, who was involved in a Skolelinux project in
3369 Germany a few years ago.</p>
3370
3371 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3372
3373 <p>I am Klaus Knopper.  I have a master degree in electrical
3374 engineering, and is currently professor in information management at
3375 the university of applied sciences Kaiserslautern / Germany and
3376 freelance Open Source software developer and consultant.</p>
3377
3378 <p>All of this is pretty much of the work I spend my days with. Apart
3379 from teaching, I'm also conducting some more or less experimental
3380 projects like the <a href="http://www.knoppix.org">Knoppix GNU/Linux live
3381 system</a> (Debian-based like Skolelinux),
3382 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html">ADRIANE</a>
3383 (a blind-friendly talking desktop system) and
3384 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/linbo/index-en.html">LINBO</a>
3385 (Linux-based network boot console, a fast remote install and repair
3386 system supporting various operating systems).</p>
3387
3388 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
3389 project?</strong></p>
3390
3391 <p>The credit for this have to go to Kurt Gramlich, who is the German
3392 coordinator for Skolelinux.  We were looking for an all-in-one open
3393 source community-supported distribution for schools, and Kurt
3394 introduced us to Skolelinux for this purpose.</p>
3395
3396 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3397 Edu?</strong></p>
3398
3399 <ul>
3400   <li>Quick installation,</li>
3401   <li>works (almost) out of the box,</li>
3402   <li>contains many useful software packages for teaching and learning,</li>
3403   <li>is a purely community-based distro and not controlled by a
3404     single company,</li>
3405   <li>has a large number of supporters and teachers who share their
3406     experience and problem solutions.</li>
3407 </ul>
3408
3409 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3410 Edu?</strong></p>
3411
3412 <ul>
3413   <li>Skolelinux is - as we had to learn - not easily upgradable to
3414   the next version.  Opposed to its genuine Debian base, upgrading to
3415   a new version means a full new installation from scratch to get it
3416   working again reliably.
3417
3418   <li>Skolelinux is based on Debian/stable, and therefore always a
3419   little outdated in terms of program versions compared to Edubuntu or
3420   similar educational Linux distros, which rather use Debian/testing
3421   as their base.
3422
3423   <li>Skolelinux has some very self-opinionated and stubborn default
3424   configuration which in my opinion adds unnecessary complexity and is
3425   not always suitable for a schools needs, the preset network
3426   configuration is actually a core definition feature of Skolelinux
3427   and not easy to change, so schools sometimes have to change their
3428   network configuration to make it "Skolelinux-compatible".
3429
3430   <li>Some proposed extensions, which were made available as
3431   contribution, like secure examination mode and lecture material
3432   distribution and collection, were not accepted into the mainline
3433   Skolelinux development and are now not easy to maintain in the
3434   future because of Skolelinux somewhat undeterministic update
3435   schemes.</li>
3436
3437   <li>Skolelinux has only a very tiny number of base developers
3438   compared to Debian.</li>
3439
3440 </ul>
3441
3442 <p>For these reasons and experience from our project, I would now
3443 rather consider using plain Debian for schools next time, until
3444 Skolelinux is more closely integrated into Debian and becomes
3445 upgradeable without reinstallation.</p>
3446
3447 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3448
3449 <p>GNU/Linux with LXDE desktop, bash for interactive dialog and
3450 programming, texlive for documentation and correspondence,
3451 occasionally LibreOffice for document format conversion. Various
3452 programming languages for teaching.</p>
3453
3454 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3455 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3456
3457 <p>Strong arguments are</p>
3458
3459 <ul>
3460
3461   <li>Knowledge is free, and so should be methods and tools for
3462     teaching and learning.</li>
3463
3464   <li>Students can learn with and use the same software at school, at
3465     home, and at their working place without running into license or
3466     conversion problems.</li>
3467
3468   <li>Closed source or proprietary software hides knowledge rather
3469     than exposing it, and proprietary software vendors try to bind
3470     customers to certain products.  But teachers need to teach
3471     science, not products.</li>
3472
3473   <li>If you have everything you for daily work as open source, what
3474     would you need proprietary software for?</li>
3475
3476 </ul>
3477
3478       </div>
3479       <div class="tags">
3480
3481
3482         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
3483
3484
3485       </div>
3486     </div>
3487     <div class="padding"></div>
3488
3489     <div class="entry">
3490       <div class="title">
3491         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnadsnett_for_alle__a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo__take_shape.html">Dugnadsnett for alle, a wireless community network in Oslo, take shape</a>
3492       </div>
3493       <div class="date">
3494         30th November 2013
3495       </div>
3496       <div class="body">
3497         <p>If you want the ability to electronically communicate directly with
3498 your neighbors and friends using a network controlled by your peers in
3499 stead of centrally controlled by a few corporations, or would like to
3500 experiment with interesting network technology, the
3501 <a href="http://www.dugnadsnett.no/">Dugnasnett for alle i Oslo</a>
3502 might be project for you.  39 mesh nodes are currently being planned,
3503 in the freshly started initiative from NUUG and Hackeriet to create a
3504 wireless community network.  The work is inspired by
3505 <a href="http://freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a>,
3506 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan
3507 Network</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roofnet">Roofnet</a>
3508 and other successful mesh networks around the globe.  Two days ago we
3509 held a workshop to try to get people started on setting up their own
3510 mesh node, and there we decided to create a new mailing list
3511 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/dugnadsnett">dugnadsnett
3512 (at) nuug.no</a> and IRC channel
3513 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#dugnadsnett.no">#dugnadsnett.no</a> to
3514 coordinate the work.  See also the NUUG blog post
3515 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/E_postliste_og_IRC_kanal_for_Dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">announcing
3516 the mailing list and IRC channel</a>.</p>
3517
3518       </div>
3519       <div class="tags">
3520
3521
3522         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
3523
3524
3525       </div>
3526     </div>
3527     <div class="padding"></div>
3528
3529     <div class="entry">
3530       <div class="title">
3531         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
3532       </div>
3533       <div class="date">
3534         24th November 2013
3535       </div>
3536       <div class="body">
3537         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
3538 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
3539 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
3540 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
3541 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
3542 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
3543 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
3544 is working on.  I checked the
3545 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
3546 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
3547 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
3548 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
3549 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
3550 These are the release notes:</p>
3551
3552 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
3553
3554 <ul>
3555
3556   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
3557    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
3558    up.</li>
3559
3560   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
3561
3562   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
3563    Matthias Klose.</li>
3564
3565   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
3566    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
3567
3568   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
3569    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
3570    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
3571
3572 </ul>
3573
3574 <p>You can
3575 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
3576 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
3577 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
3578 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
3579 include a testsuite check.</p>
3580
3581       </div>
3582       <div class="tags">
3583
3584
3585         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3586
3587
3588       </div>
3589     </div>
3590     <div class="padding"></div>
3591
3592     <div class="entry">
3593       <div class="title">
3594         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/All_drones_should_be_radio_marked_with_what_they_do_and_who_they_belong_to.html">All drones should be radio marked with what they do and who they belong to</a>
3595       </div>
3596       <div class="date">
3597         21st November 2013
3598       </div>
3599       <div class="body">
3600         <p>Drones, flying robots, are getting more and more popular.  The most
3601 know ones are the killer drones used by some government to murder
3602 people they do not like without giving them the chance of a fair
3603 trial, but the technology have many good uses too, from mapping and
3604 forest maintenance to photography and search and rescue.  I am sure it
3605 is just a question of time before "bad drones" are in the hands of
3606 private enterprises and not only state criminals but petty criminals
3607 too.  The drone technology is very useful and very dangerous.  To have
3608 some control over the use of drones, I agree with Daniel Suarez in his
3609 TED talk
3610 "<a href="https://archive.org/details/DanielSuarez_2013G">The kill
3611 decision shouldn't belong to a robot</a>", where he suggested this
3612 little gem to keep the good while limiting the bad use of drones:</p>
3613
3614 <blockquote>
3615
3616 <p>Each robot and drone should have a cryptographically signed
3617 I.D. burned in at the factory that can be used to track its movement
3618 through public spaces. We have license plates on cars, tail numbers on
3619 aircraft. This is no different. And every citizen should be able to
3620 download an app that shows the population of drones and autonomous
3621 vehicles moving through public spaces around them, both right now and
3622 historically. And civic leaders should deploy sensors and civic drones
3623 to detect rogue drones, and instead of sending killer drones of their
3624 own up to shoot them down, they should notify humans to their
3625 presence. And in certain very high-security areas, perhaps civic
3626 drones would snare them and drag them off to a bomb disposal facility.</p>
3627
3628 <p>But notice, this is more an immune system than a weapons system. It
3629 would allow us to avail ourselves of the use of autonomous vehicles
3630 and drones while still preserving our open, civil society.</p>
3631
3632 </blockquote>
3633
3634 <p>The key is that <em>every citizen</em> should be able to read the
3635 radio beacons sent from the drones in the area, to be able to check
3636 both the government and others use of drones.  For such control to be
3637 effective, everyone must be able to do it.  What should such beacon
3638 contain?  At least formal owner, purpose, contact information and GPS
3639 location.  Probably also the origin and target position of the current
3640 flight.  And perhaps some registration number to be able to look up
3641 the drone in a central database tracking their movement.  Robots
3642 should not have privacy.  It is people who need privacy.</p>
3643
3644       </div>
3645       <div class="tags">
3646
3647
3648         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
3649
3650
3651       </div>
3652     </div>
3653     <div class="padding"></div>
3654
3655     <div class="entry">
3656       <div class="title">
3657         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo_.html">Lets make a wireless community network in Oslo!</a>
3658       </div>
3659       <div class="date">
3660         13th November 2013
3661       </div>
3662       <div class="body">
3663         <p>Today NUUG and Hackeriet announced
3664 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Bli_med___bygge_dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">our
3665 plans to join forces and create a wireless community network in
3666 Oslo</a>.  The workshop to help people get started will take place
3667 Thursday 2013-11-28, but we already are collecting the geolocation of
3668 people joining forces to make this happen.  We have
3669 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/oslo-nodes.geojson">9
3670 locations plotted on the map</a>, but we will need more before we have
3671 a connected mesh spread across Oslo.  If this sound interesting to
3672 you, please join us at the workshop.  If you are too impatient to wait
3673 15 days, please join us on the IRC channel
3674 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
3675 right away. :)</p>
3676
3677       </div>
3678       <div class="tags">
3679
3680
3681         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
3682
3683
3684       </div>
3685     </div>
3686     <div class="padding"></div>
3687
3688     <div class="entry">
3689       <div class="title">
3690         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Running_TP_Link_MR3040_as_a_batman_adv_mesh_node_using_openwrt.html">Running TP-Link MR3040 as a batman-adv mesh node using openwrt</a>
3691       </div>
3692       <div class="date">
3693         10th November 2013
3694       </div>
3695       <div class="body">
3696         <p>Continuing my research into mesh networking, I was recommended to
3697 use TP-Link 3040 and 3600 access points as mesh nodes, and the pair I
3698 bought arrived on Friday.  Here are my notes on how to set up the
3699 MR3040 as a mesh node using
3700 <a href="http://www.openwrt.org/">OpenWrt</a>.</p>
3701
3702 <p>I started by following the instructions on the OpenWRT wiki for
3703 <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3040">TL-MR3040</a>,
3704 and downloaded
3705 <a href="http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin">the
3706 recommended firmware image</a>
3707 (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) and
3708 uploaded it into the original web interface.  The flashing went fine,
3709 and the machine was available via telnet on the ethernet port.  After
3710 logging in and setting the root password, ssh was available and I
3711 could start to set it up as a batman-adv mesh node.</p>
3712
3713 <p>I started off by reading the instructions from
3714 <a href="http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php?title=Antoine's_Research">Wireless
3715 Africa</a>, which had quite a lot of useful information, but
3716 eventually I followed the recipe from the Open Mesh wiki for
3717 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Batman-adv-openwrt-config">using
3718 batman-adv on OpenWrt</a>.  A small snag was the fact that the
3719 <tt>opkg install kmod-batman-adv</tt> command did not work as it
3720 should.  The batman-adv kernel module would fail to load because its
3721 dependency crc16 was not already loaded.  I
3722 <a href="https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/14452">reported the bug</a> to
3723 the openwrt project and hope it will be fixed soon.  But the problem
3724 only seem to affect initial testing of batman-adv, as configuration
3725 seem to work when booting from scratch.</p>
3726
3727 <p>The setup is done using files in /etc/config/.  I did not bridge
3728 the Ethernet and mesh interfaces this time, to be able to hook up the
3729 box on my local network and log into it for configuration updates.
3730 The following files were changed and look like this after modifying
3731 them:</p>
3732
3733 <p><tt>/etc/config/network</tt></p>
3734
3735 <pre>
3736
3737 config interface 'loopback'
3738         option ifname 'lo'
3739         option proto 'static'
3740         option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
3741         option netmask '255.0.0.0'
3742
3743 config globals 'globals'
3744         option ula_prefix 'fdbf:4c12:3fed::/48'
3745
3746 config interface 'lan'
3747         option ifname 'eth0'
3748         option type 'bridge'
3749         option proto 'dhcp'
3750         option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
3751         option netmask '255.255.255.0'
3752         option hostname 'tl-mr3040'
3753         option ip6assign '60'
3754
3755 config interface 'mesh'
3756         option ifname 'adhoc0'
3757         option mtu '1528'
3758         option proto 'batadv'
3759         option mesh 'bat0'
3760 </pre>
3761
3762 <p><tt>/etc/config/wireless</tt></p>
3763 <pre>
3764
3765 config wifi-device 'radio0'
3766         option type 'mac80211'
3767         option channel '11'
3768         option hwmode '11ng'
3769         option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac'
3770         option htmode 'HT20'
3771         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-20'
3772         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-40'
3773         list ht_capab 'RX-STBC1'
3774         list ht_capab 'DSSS_CCK-40'
3775         option disabled '0'
3776
3777 config wifi-iface 'wmesh'
3778         option device 'radio0'
3779         option ifname 'adhoc0'
3780         option network 'mesh'
3781         option encryption 'none'
3782         option mode 'adhoc'
3783         option bssid '02:BA:00:00:00:01'
3784         option ssid 'meshfx@hackeriet'
3785 </pre>
3786 <p><tt>/etc/config/batman-adv</tt></p>
3787 <pre>
3788
3789 config 'mesh' 'bat0'
3790         option interfaces 'adhoc0'
3791         option 'aggregated_ogms'
3792         option 'ap_isolation'
3793         option 'bonding'
3794         option 'fragmentation'
3795         option 'gw_bandwidth'
3796         option 'gw_mode'
3797         option 'gw_sel_class'
3798         option 'log_level'
3799         option 'orig_interval'
3800         option 'vis_mode'
3801         option 'bridge_loop_avoidance'
3802         option 'distributed_arp_table'
3803         option 'network_coding'
3804         option 'hop_penalty'
3805
3806 # yet another batX instance
3807 # config 'mesh' 'bat5'
3808 #       option 'interfaces' 'second_mesh'
3809 </pre>
3810
3811 <p>The mesh node is now operational.  I have yet to test its range,
3812 but I hope it is good.  I have not yet tested the TP-Link 3600 box
3813 still wrapped up in plastic.</p>
3814
3815       </div>
3816       <div class="tags">
3817
3818
3819         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
3820
3821
3822       </div>
3823     </div>
3824     <div class="padding"></div>
3825
3826     <div class="entry">
3827       <div class="title">
3828         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
3829       </div>
3830       <div class="date">
3831          2nd November 2013
3832       </div>
3833       <div class="body">
3834         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
3835 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
3836 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
3837 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
3838 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
3839
3840 <p><pre>
3841 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
3842 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
3843 # Provides:          rsyslog
3844 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
3845 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
3846 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
3847 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
3848 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
3849 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
3850 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
3851 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
3852 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
3853 ### END INIT INFO
3854 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
3855 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
3856 </pre></p>
3857
3858 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
3859 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
3860 info/comments.</p>
3861
3862 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
3863 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
3864
3865 <p><pre>
3866 #!/bin/sh
3867
3868 # Define LSB log_* functions.
3869 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
3870 # and status_of_proc is working.
3871 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
3872
3873 #
3874 # Function that starts the daemon/service
3875
3876 #
3877 do_start()
3878 {
3879         # Return
3880         #   0 if daemon has been started
3881         #   1 if daemon was already running
3882         #   2 if daemon could not be started
3883         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
3884                 || return 1
3885         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
3886                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
3887                 || return 2
3888         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
3889         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
3890         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
3891 }
3892
3893 #
3894 # Function that stops the daemon/service
3895 #
3896 do_stop()
3897 {
3898         # Return
3899         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
3900         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
3901         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
3902         #   other if a failure occurred
3903         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
3904         RETVAL="$?"
3905         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
3906         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
3907         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
3908         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
3909         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
3910         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
3911         # sleep for some time.
3912         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
3913         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
3914         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
3915         rm -f $PIDFILE
3916         return "$RETVAL"
3917 }
3918
3919 #
3920 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
3921 #
3922 do_reload() {
3923         #
3924         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
3925         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
3926         # then implement that here.
3927         #
3928         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
3929         return 0
3930 }
3931
3932 SCRIPTNAME=$1
3933 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
3934 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
3935 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
3936     script="$1"
3937     shift
3938     . $script
3939 else
3940     exit 0
3941 fi
3942
3943 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
3944 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
3945
3946 # Exit if the package is not installed
3947 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
3948
3949 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
3950 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
3951
3952 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
3953 . /lib/init/vars.sh
3954
3955 case "$1" in
3956   start)
3957         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
3958         do_start
3959         case "$?" in
3960                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
3961                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
3962         esac
3963         ;;
3964   stop)
3965         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
3966         do_stop
3967         case "$?" in
3968                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
3969                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
3970         esac
3971         ;;
3972   status)
3973         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
3974         ;;
3975   #reload|force-reload)
3976         #
3977         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
3978         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
3979         #
3980         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
3981         #do_reload
3982         #log_end_msg $?
3983         #;;
3984   restart|force-reload)
3985         #
3986         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
3987         # 'force-reload' alias
3988         #
3989         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
3990         do_stop
3991         case "$?" in
3992           0|1)
3993                 do_start
3994                 case "$?" in
3995                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
3996                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
3997                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
3998                 esac
3999                 ;;
4000           *)
4001                 # Failed to stop
4002                 log_end_msg 1
4003                 ;;
4004         esac
4005         ;;
4006   *)
4007         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
4008         exit 3
4009         ;;
4010 esac
4011
4012 :
4013 </pre></p>
4014
4015 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
4016 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
4017 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
4018 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
4019
4020 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
4021 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
4022 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
4023 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
4024 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
4025
4026       </div>
4027       <div class="tags">
4028
4029
4030         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>.
4031
4032
4033       </div>
4034     </div>
4035     <div class="padding"></div>
4036
4037     <div class="entry">
4038       <div class="title">
4039         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
4040       </div>
4041       <div class="date">
4042          1st November 2013
4043       </div>
4044       <div class="body">
4045         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
4046 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
4047 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
4048 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
4049 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
4050 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
4051 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
4052 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
4053 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
4054 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
4055 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
4056 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
4057
4058 <p>The source is now available from
4059 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
4060
4061       </div>
4062       <div class="tags">
4063
4064
4065         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>.
4066
4067
4068       </div>
4069     </div>
4070     <div class="padding"></div>
4071
4072     <div class="entry">
4073       <div class="title">
4074         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
4075       </div>
4076       <div class="date">
4077         27th October 2013
4078       </div>
4079       <div class="body">
4080         <p>The
4081 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
4082 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
4083 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
4084 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
4085 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
4086 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
4087 of a plan to simplify the build system for
4088 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
4089 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
4090 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
4091 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
4092 Raspberry Pi.</p>
4093
4094 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
4095 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
4096 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
4097 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
4098 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
4099 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
4100 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
4101 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
4102 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
4103 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
4104 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
4105 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
4106 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
4107 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
4108 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
4109 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
4110 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
4111 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
4112 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
4113 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
4114 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
4115 available from
4116 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
4117 upstream project page</a>.</p>
4118
4119 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
4120 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
4121 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
4122 list:</p>
4123
4124 <p><pre>
4125 #!/bin/sh
4126 set -e # Exit on first error
4127 rootdir="$1"
4128 cd "$rootdir"
4129 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
4130 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
4131 EOF
4132 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
4133 # install a kernel somewhere too.
4134 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
4135     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
4136 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
4137 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
4138 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
4139 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
4140 </pre></p>
4141
4142 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
4143 to build the image:</p>
4144
4145 <pre>
4146 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
4147     --variant minbase \
4148     --arch armel \
4149     --distribution jessie \
4150     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
4151     --image test.img \
4152     --size 600M \
4153     --bootsize 64M \
4154     --boottype vfat \
4155     --log-level debug \
4156     --verbose \
4157     --no-kernel \
4158     --no-extlinux \
4159     --root-password raspberry \
4160     --hostname raspberrypi \
4161     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
4162     --customize `pwd`/customize \
4163     --package netbase \
4164     --package git-core \
4165     --package binutils \
4166     --package ca-certificates \
4167     --package wget \
4168     --package kmod
4169 </pre></p>
4170
4171 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
4172 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
4173 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
4174 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
4175 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
4176 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
4177 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
4178
4179 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
4180 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
4181 build dependency list.</p>
4182
4183 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
4184 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
4185 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
4186 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
4187
4188       </div>
4189       <div class="tags">
4190
4191
4192         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
4193
4194
4195       </div>
4196     </div>
4197     <div class="padding"></div>
4198
4199     <div class="entry">
4200       <div class="title">
4201         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node</a>
4202       </div>
4203       <div class="date">
4204         21st October 2013
4205       </div>
4206       <div class="body">
4207         <p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
4208 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
4209 batman-adv mesh technology</a>.  I want to gain some experience to see
4210 if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
4211 Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
4212 mesh network around the park where I live.  Batman-adv is a layer 2
4213 mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear
4214 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.</p>
4215
4216 <p>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
4217 around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv.  So
4218 instead, I started playing with a
4219 <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>, and tried to
4220 get it working as a mesh node.  My idea is to use it to create a mesh
4221 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
4222 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
4223 network.  This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
4224 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
4225 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh.  This in turn is useful for
4226 Android phones using <a href="http://servalproject.org/">the Serval
4227 Project</a> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
4228 phone and message each other for free.  The reason is that Android
4229 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
4230 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted.  But if
4231 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
4232 every client on the local network.</p>
4233
4234 <p>To get this working, I've created a debian package
4235 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node">meshfx-node</a>
4236 and a script
4237 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node">build-rpi-mesh-node</a>
4238 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image.  I'm using Debian Jessie (and
4239 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
4240 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
4241 image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now.  Also, as
4242 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
4243 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit.  I hope
4244 the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
4245 support.</p>
4246
4247 <p>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
4248 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:</p>
4249
4250 <p><pre>
4251 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
4252     https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
4253 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
4254 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
4255 %
4256 </pre></p>
4257
4258 <p>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
4259 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node.  At least it does for
4260 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
4261 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
4262 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">an
4263 earlier blog post about this mesh testing</a>.</p>
4264
4265 <p>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either.  I bought
4266 everything over the counter in shops nearby.  If I had ordered online
4267 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:</p>
4268
4269 <p><table>
4270
4271 <tr><th>Supplier</th><th>Model</th><th>NOK</th></tr>
4272 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi model B</td><td>349.90</td></tr>
4273 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi type B case</td><td>99.90</td></tr>
4274 <tr><td>Lefdal</td><td>Jensen Air:Link 25150</td><td>295.-</td></tr>
4275 <tr><td>Clas Ohlson</td><td>Kingston 16 GB SD card</td><td>199.-</td></tr>
4276 <tr><td>Total cost</td><td></td><td>943.80</td></tr>
4277
4278 </table></p>
4279
4280 <p>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
4281 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th
4282 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
4283 play-node I use to develop the image building script.  And some times
4284 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it.  I look forward
4285 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
4286 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)</p>
4287
4288       </div>
4289       <div class="tags">
4290
4291
4292         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
4293
4294
4295       </div>
4296     </div>
4297     <div class="padding"></div>
4298
4299     <div class="entry">
4300       <div class="title">
4301         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html">Perl library to control the Spykee robot moved to github</a>
4302       </div>
4303       <div class="date">
4304         19th October 2013
4305       </div>
4306       <div class="body">
4307         <p>Back in 2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
4308 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee">the Spykee robot</a>
4309 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
4310 web page.  Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
4311 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github.  If
4312 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
4313 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl">the
4314 libspykee-perl github repository</a>.</p>
4315
4316       </div>
4317       <div class="tags">
4318
4319
4320         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>.
4321
4322
4323       </div>
4324     </div>
4325     <div class="padding"></div>
4326
4327     <div class="entry">
4328       <div class="title">
4329         <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>
4330       </div>
4331       <div class="date">
4332         15th October 2013
4333       </div>
4334       <div class="body">
4335         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
4336 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
4337 these. :)</p>
4338
4339 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
4340 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
4341 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
4342 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
4343 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
4344 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
4345 hope you will to. :)</p>
4346
4347 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
4348 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
4349 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
4350 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
4351 donated.  Are you next?</p>
4352
4353 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
4354 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
4355 statement under the heading
4356 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
4357 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
4358 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
4359 too.</p>
4360
4361       </div>
4362       <div class="tags">
4363
4364
4365         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>.
4366
4367
4368       </div>
4369     </div>
4370     <div class="padding"></div>
4371
4372     <div class="entry">
4373       <div class="title">
4374         <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>
4375       </div>
4376       <div class="date">
4377         11th October 2013
4378       </div>
4379       <div class="body">
4380         <p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
4381 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
4382 areas, depending on the radio technology used.  Normal wifi equipment
4383 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
4384 successful examples like
4385 <a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
4386 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
4387 (see
4388 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
4389 for a large list</a>) around the globe.  To give you an idea how it
4390 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
4391 can be seen from their
4392 <a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
4393 updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
4394 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
4395 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
4396 and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
4397
4398 <p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
4399 to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
4400 href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
4401 my recent involvement in
4402 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
4403 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
4404 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
4405 when possible, given that most communication between people are
4406 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
4407 communication patterns).  It also allow people to communicate without
4408 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
4409 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
4410 important over the years.</p>
4411
4412 <p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
4413 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
4414 <a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania.  They seem to
4415 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
4416 <a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
4417 Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
4418 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
4419 <a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>.  Unfortunately the wiki
4420 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
4421 reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
4422 the new project.  A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
4423 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks.  I
4424 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
4425 speakers about this talk (from
4426 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
4427
4428 <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
4429
4430 <p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
4431 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
4432 figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
4433 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
4434 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
4435 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
4436 batman-adv for now.  It sure help me to  know that the very cool
4437 <a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
4438 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
4439 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
4440 less industrialized communities.  Check out this cool video presenting
4441 that project (from
4442 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
4443
4444 <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
4445
4446 <p>According to the wikipedia page on
4447 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
4448 mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
4449 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
4450 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
4451 based community mesh networks.</p>
4452
4453 <p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
4454 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
4455 network.  One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
4456 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
4457 computer.  The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
4458 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up.  A
4459 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
4460 introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project.  These are
4461 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
4462
4463 <p><table>
4464 <tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
4465 <tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
4466 <tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
4467 <td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
4468 <td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
4469 </table></p>
4470
4471 <p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
4472 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers.  (See a nice post from
4473 VillageTelco about
4474 "<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
4475 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
4476 for details.)  When these settings are activated and you have some
4477 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
4478 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
4479 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
4480
4481 <p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
4482 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
4483 firmware supporting batman-adv.  If anyone know how to use that old
4484 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
4485
4486 <p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
4487 us on IRC, either channel
4488 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
4489 or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
4490 irc.freenode.net.</p>
4491
4492 <p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
4493 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
4494 and Innovation called
4495 <a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
4496 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
4497 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
4498 Grünerløkka in Oslo.  So mesh networks are also interesting for
4499 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
4500 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
4501 know have closed down the experiment.  Perhaps Telenor or others would
4502 be interested in a cooperation?</p>
4503
4504 <p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
4505 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
4506 by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
4507 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
4508 mesh system.</p>
4509
4510       </div>
4511       <div class="tags">
4512
4513
4514         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
4515
4516
4517       </div>
4518     </div>
4519     <div class="padding"></div>
4520
4521     <div class="entry">
4522       <div class="title">
4523         <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>
4524       </div>
4525       <div class="date">
4526          8th October 2013
4527       </div>
4528       <div class="body">
4529         <p>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
4530 Salvador had published a
4531 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc">video on
4532 Youtube</a> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
4533 Skolelinux profile.  This is the profile intended for use at home or
4534 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
4535 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
4536 in other word a single user machine).  The result is 11 minutes long,
4537 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
4538 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
4539 showing the <a href="http://www.zygotebody.com/">Zygote Body 3D model
4540 of the human body</a>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
4541 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
4542 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
4543 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
4544 computers without hard drives by installing one central
4545 <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP server</a>.</p>
4546
4547 <p>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:</p>
4548
4549 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
4550
4551 <p>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux?  Please let
4552 me know. :)</p>
4553
4554       </div>
4555       <div class="tags">
4556
4557
4558         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4559
4560
4561       </div>
4562     </div>
4563     <div class="padding"></div>
4564
4565     <div class="entry">
4566       <div class="title">
4567         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html">Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!</a>
4568       </div>
4569       <div class="date">
4570         29th September 2013
4571       </div>
4572       <div class="body">
4573         <p>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
4574 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team.  The
4575 complete announcement text can be found at
4576 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130928">the Debian News
4577 section</a>, translated to several languages.  Please check it out.</p>
4578
4579 <p>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon.  One
4580 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
4581 partition is too small.  A workaround is to extend the partition (use
4582 lvresize + resize2fs in tty 2 while installing).</p>
4583
4584       </div>
4585       <div class="tags">
4586
4587
4588         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4589
4590
4591       </div>
4592     </div>
4593     <div class="padding"></div>
4594
4595     <div class="entry">
4596       <div class="title">
4597         <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>
4598       </div>
4599       <div class="date">
4600         27th September 2013
4601       </div>
4602       <div class="body">
4603         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
4604 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
4605 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
4606 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
4607
4608 <ul>
4609
4610 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
4611 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
4612
4613 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
4614 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
4615
4616 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
4617 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
4618 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
4619 (Youtube)</li>
4620
4621 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
4622 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
4623
4624 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
4625 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
4626
4627 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
4628 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
4629 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
4630
4631 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
4632 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
4633 (Youtube)</li>
4634
4635 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
4636 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
4637
4638 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
4639 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
4640
4641 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
4642 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
4643 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
4644
4645 </ul>
4646
4647 <p>A larger list is available from
4648 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
4649 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
4650
4651 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
4652 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
4653 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
4654 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
4655 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
4656 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
4657 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
4658 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
4659 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
4660 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
4661 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
4662
4663       </div>
4664       <div class="tags">
4665
4666
4667         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>.
4668
4669
4670       </div>
4671     </div>
4672     <div class="padding"></div>
4673
4674     <div class="entry">
4675       <div class="title">
4676         <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>
4677       </div>
4678       <div class="date">
4679         16th September 2013
4680       </div>
4681       <div class="body">
4682         <p>The third wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
4683 today.  This is the release announcement from Holger Levsen:</p>
4684
4685 <blockquote>
4686 <p>Hi,</p>
4687
4688 <p>it is my pleasure to announce the third beta release (beta 2 for
4689 short) of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
4690 Skolelinux</a> based on Debian Wheezy!</p>
4691
4692 <p>Please test these images extensivly, if no new problems are found
4693 we plan to do this final Debian Edu Wheezy release this coming
4694 weekend.  We are not aware of any major problems or blockers in beta2,
4695 if you find something, please notify us immediately!</p>
4696
4697 <p>(More about the remaining steps for the Edu Wheezy release in
4698 another mail to the edu list tonight or tomorrow...)</p>
4699
4700 <p>Noteworthy changes and software updates for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b2
4701 compared to beta1:</p>
4702
4703 <ul>
4704
4705 <li>The KDE proxy setup has been adjusted to use the provided wpad.dat. This
4706 also gets Chromium to use this proxy.</li>
4707 <li>Install kdepim-groupware with KDE desktops to make sure korganizer
4708 understand ical/dav sources.</li>
4709 <li>Increased default maximum size of /var/spool/squid and /skole/backup on the
4710 main server.</li>
4711 <li>A source DVD image containing all source packages is now available as well.</li>
4712 <li>Updates for chromium (29.0.1547.57-1~deb7u1), imagemagick
4713 (6.7.7.10-5+deb7u2), php5 (5.4.4-14+deb7u4), libmodplug
4714 (0.8.8.4-3+deb7u1+git20130828), tiff (4.0.2-6+deb7u2), linux-image
4715 (3.2.0-4-486_3.2.46-1+deb7u1).</li>
4716
4717 </ul>
4718
4719 <p>Where to get it:</p>
4720
4721 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
4722
4723 <ul>
4724 <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>
4725 <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>
4726 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso .</li>
4727 </ul>
4728
4729 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is:  3a1c89f4666df80eebcd46c5bf5fedb866f9472f</p>
4730
4731 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
4732 <ul>
4733 <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>
4734 <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>
4735 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso .</li>
4736 </ul>
4737
4738 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 702d1718548f401c74bfa6df9f032cc3ee16597e</p>
4739
4740 <p>The Source DVD image has the filename
4741 debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-source-DVD.iso and the SHA1SUM
4742 089eed8b3f962db47aae1f6a9685e9bb2fa30ca5 and is available the same way
4743 as the other isos.</p>
4744
4745 <p>How to report bugs</p>
4746
4747 <p>For information how to report bugs please see
4748 <br><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
4749
4750
4751 <p>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</p>
4752
4753 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
4754 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
4755 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
4756 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
4757 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
4758 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
4759 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
4760 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
4761 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
4762 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
4763 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
4764 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
4765 can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
4766
4767 <p>This is the seventh test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
4768 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
4769 Squeeze release.</p>
4770
4771 <p>Notes for upgrades from Alpha Prereleases</p>
4772
4773 <p>Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
4774 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
4775 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
4776 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
4777 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined on the mailing list. (2)
4778 Accept the new version of gosa.conf and replace both contained admin
4779 password placeholders with the password hashes found in the old one
4780 (backup copy!). In both cases all users need to change their password
4781 to make sure a password is set for CIFS access to their home
4782 directory.</p>
4783
4784
4785 <p>cheers,
4786 <br>        Holger</p>
4787 </blockquote>
4788
4789       </div>
4790       <div class="tags">
4791
4792
4793         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4794
4795
4796       </div>
4797     </div>
4798     <div class="padding"></div>
4799
4800     <div class="entry">
4801       <div class="title">
4802         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
4803       </div>
4804       <div class="date">
4805         10th September 2013
4806       </div>
4807       <div class="body">
4808         <p>I was introduced to the
4809 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
4810 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
4811 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
4812 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
4813 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
4814 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
4815 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
4816 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
4817
4818 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
4819 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
4820 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
4821 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
4822 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
4823
4824 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
4825 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
4826 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
4827 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
4828 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
4829 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
4830 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
4831 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
4832 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
4833 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
4834 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
4835 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
4836 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
4837 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
4838 missing in Debian).</p>
4839
4840 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
4841 scripts
4842 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
4843 and a administrative web interface
4844 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
4845 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
4846 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
4847 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
4848 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
4849 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
4850 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
4851 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
4852 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
4853 this is really working yet, see
4854 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
4855 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
4856 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
4857 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
4858 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
4859 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
4860 with lots of half baked features.</p>
4861
4862 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
4863 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
4864 at.</p>
4865
4866 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
4867
4868 <ol>
4869
4870 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
4871 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
4872 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
4873 to the Debian installer:<p>
4874 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
4875
4876 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
4877 install on.</li>
4878
4879 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
4880 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
4881
4882 </ol>
4883
4884 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
4885
4886 <ol>
4887
4888 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
4889 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
4890 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
4891 <pre>
4892 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
4893 </pre></li>
4894 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
4895 <pre>
4896 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
4897    apt-key add -
4898 apt-get update
4899 apt-get install freedombox-setup
4900 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
4901 </pre></li>
4902 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
4903
4904 </ol>
4905
4906 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
4907 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
4908 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
4909 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
4910 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
4911
4912 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
4913 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
4914 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
4915 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
4916
4917 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
4918 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
4919 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
4920 irc.debian.org and the
4921 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
4922 mailing list</a>.</p>
4923
4924 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
4925 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
4926 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
4927 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
4928 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
4929 default password is 'secret'.</p>
4930
4931       </div>
4932       <div class="tags">
4933
4934
4935         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>.
4936
4937
4938       </div>
4939     </div>
4940     <div class="padding"></div>
4941
4942     <div class="entry">
4943       <div class="title">
4944         <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>
4945       </div>
4946       <div class="date">
4947         22nd August 2013
4948       </div>
4949       <div class="body">
4950         <p>The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
4951 today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
4952 integration fixes .  This is the release announcement:</p>
4953
4954 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22</strong></p>
4955
4956 <p>These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4957 7.1+edu0~b1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
4958
4959 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
4960
4961 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
4962 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
4963 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
4964 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
4965 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
4966 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
4967 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
4968 the main server from CD or USB stick all other machines can be
4969 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
4970 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
4971 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
4972 desktop contains
4973 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
4974 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
4975 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
4976 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
4977
4978 <p>This is the sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
4979 is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
4980 release.</p>
4981
4982 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
4983 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
4984 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
4985 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
4986 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
4987 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/08/msg00127.html">on
4988 the mailing list</a>. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
4989 replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
4990 hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
4991 need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
4992 CIFS access to their home directory.</p>
4993
4994 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
4995
4996 <ul>
4997
4998 <li>Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
4999     work also without a attached tty.</li>
5000 <li>Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
5001     make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
5002     tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
5003     has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
5004     required).</li>
5005
5006 </ul>
5007
5008 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
5009
5010 <ul>
5011
5012 <li>Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
5013 needed for desktop=xfce installations.</li>
5014 <li>Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
5015 stick ISO image.</li>
5016 <li>Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).</li>
5017 <li>Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.</li>
5018 <li>Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
5019     during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
5020     cope with this.</li>
5021 <li>Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².</li>
5022 <li>Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
5023     empty password hashes.</li>
5024 <li>Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
5025     smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
5026     from joining the Samba domain.</li>
5027
5028 </ul>
5029
5030 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
5031
5032 <ul>
5033
5034 <li>KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
5035     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
5036 <li>Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
5037     (using the KDE configuration).</li>
5038
5039 </ul>
5040
5041 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
5042
5043 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
5044
5045 <ul>
5046
5047 <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>
5048
5049 <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>
5050
5051 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso .</li>
5052
5053 </ul>
5054
5055 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
5056 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2</p>
5057
5058 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
5059
5060 <ul>
5061
5062 <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>
5063 <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>
5064 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso .</li>
5065
5066 </ul>
5067
5068 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
5069 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119</p>
5070
5071
5072 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
5073
5074 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
5075
5076       </div>
5077       <div class="tags">
5078
5079
5080         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5081
5082
5083       </div>
5084     </div>
5085     <div class="padding"></div>
5086
5087     <div class="entry">
5088       <div class="title">
5089         <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>
5090       </div>
5091       <div class="date">
5092         18th August 2013
5093       </div>
5094       <div class="body">
5095         <p>Earlier, I reported about
5096 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
5097 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
5098 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
5099 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
5100 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
5101 currently on the disk.</p>
5102
5103 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
5104 <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>
5105 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
5106 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
5107 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
5108 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
5109 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
5110 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
5111 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
5112 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
5113 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
5114 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
5115 the broken disks.</p>
5116
5117       </div>
5118       <div class="tags">
5119
5120
5121         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>.
5122
5123
5124       </div>
5125     </div>
5126     <div class="padding"></div>
5127
5128     <div class="entry">
5129       <div class="title">
5130         <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>
5131       </div>
5132       <div class="date">
5133          2nd August 2013
5134       </div>
5135       <div class="body">
5136         <p>It has been a while since my last update.  Since last summer, I
5137 have worked on a Norwegian
5138 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
5139 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
5140 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright
5141 law.  Yesterday, I finally broken the 90% mark, when counting the
5142 number of strings to translate.  Due to real life constraints, I have
5143 not had time to work on it since March, but when the summer broke out,
5144 I found time to work on it again.  Still lots of work left, but the
5145 first draft is nearing completion.  I created a graph to show the
5146 progress of the translation:</p>
5147
5148 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
5149
5150 <p>When the first draft is done, the translated text need to be
5151 proof read, and the remaining formatting problems with images and SVG
5152 drawings need to be fixed.  There are probably also some index entries
5153 missing that need to be added.  This can be done by comparing the
5154 index entries listed in the SiSU version of the book, or comparing the
5155 English docbook version with the paper version.  Last, the colophon
5156 page with ISBN numbers etc need to be wrapped up before the release is
5157 done.  I should also figure out how to get correct Norwegian sorting
5158 of the index pages.  All docbook tools I have tried so far (xmlto,
5159 docbook-xsl, dblatex) get the order of symbols and the special
5160 Norwegian letters ÆØÅ wrong.</p>
5161
5162 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
5163 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
5164 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
5165 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
5166 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
5167 around?  There are also some legal terms that are unfamiliar to me.
5168 If you want to help, please get in touch with me, and check out the
5169 project files currently available from
5170 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
5171
5172 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
5173 the updated
5174 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
5175 and
5176 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
5177 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
5178 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
5179 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
5180
5181       </div>
5182       <div class="tags">
5183
5184
5185         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>.
5186
5187
5188       </div>
5189     </div>
5190     <div class="padding"></div>
5191
5192     <div class="entry">
5193       <div class="title">
5194         <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>
5195       </div>
5196       <div class="date">
5197         27th July 2013
5198       </div>
5199       <div class="body">
5200         <p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
5201 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
5202
5203 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released
5204 2013-07-27</strong></p>
5205
5206 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5207 7.1+edu0~b0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
5208
5209 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
5210
5211 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
5212 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
5213 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
5214 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
5215 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
5216 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
5217 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
5218 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
5219 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
5220 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
5221 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
5222 desktop contains
5223 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
5224 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
5225 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
5226 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
5227
5228 <p>This is the fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
5229 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
5230 Squeeze release.</p>
5231
5232 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
5233 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
5234 release.</p>
5235
5236 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
5237
5238 <ul>
5239
5240 <li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager
5241    for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li>
5242 <li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser
5243    packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced
5244    by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those
5245    installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa
5246    and libpam-mklocaluser.</li>
5247 <li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li>
5248 <li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li>
5249 <li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of
5250    crash bugs.</li>
5251
5252 </ul>
5253
5254 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
5255
5256 <ul>
5257
5258 <li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break
5259    desktop=gnome installations.</li>
5260 <li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the
5261    netinst CD.</li>
5262 <li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific
5263    setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li>
5264 <li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at
5265    install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash
5266    with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li>
5267 <li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient
5268    exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host
5269    name setting at run time to work again.</li>
5270 <li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL
5271    fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by
5272    updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li>
5273 <li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique
5274    (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li>
5275 <li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li>
5276
5277 </ul>
5278
5279 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
5280
5281 <ul>
5282
5283 <li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li>
5284 <li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
5285     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
5286 <li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</li>
5287
5288 </ul>
5289
5290 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
5291
5292 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
5293
5294 <ul>
5295
5296 <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>
5297
5298 <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>
5299
5300 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li>
5301
5302 </ul>
5303
5304 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109
5305 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</p>
5306
5307 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
5308
5309 <ul>
5310
5311 <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>
5312 <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>
5313 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li>
5314
5315 </ul>
5316
5317 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69
5318 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</p>
5319
5320
5321 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
5322
5323 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
5324
5325       </div>
5326       <div class="tags">
5327
5328
5329         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5330
5331
5332       </div>
5333     </div>
5334     <div class="padding"></div>
5335
5336     <div class="entry">
5337       <div class="title">
5338         <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>
5339       </div>
5340       <div class="date">
5341         17th July 2013
5342       </div>
5343       <div class="body">
5344         <p>Today I switched to
5345 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
5346 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
5347 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
5348 <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
5349 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
5350 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
5351 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
5352 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
5353 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
5354 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
5355 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
5356 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
5357 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
5358 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
5359 station from now on.</p>
5360
5361 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
5362 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
5363 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
5364 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
5365 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
5366 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
5367 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
5368 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
5369 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
5370 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
5371 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
5372 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
5373
5374 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
5375 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
5376 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
5377 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
5378 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
5379 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
5380 parameters are tuned:</p>
5381
5382 <ul>
5383
5384 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
5385     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
5386
5387 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
5388     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
5389     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
5390
5391 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
5392     systems.</li>
5393
5394 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
5395     /etc/fstab.</li>
5396
5397 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
5398
5399 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
5400     cron.daily).</li>
5401
5402 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
5403     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
5404
5405 </ul>
5406
5407 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
5408 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
5409 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
5410 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
5411 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
5412 from getting the data on the disk (see
5413 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
5414 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
5415 right thing to do.</p>
5416
5417 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
5418 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
5419 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
5420
5421 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
5422 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
5423 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
5424 instead of during my work.</p>
5425
5426 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
5427 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
5428
5429 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
5430 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
5431 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
5432
5433 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
5434 there.</p>
5435
5436 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
5437 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
5438 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
5439 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
5440 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
5441 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
5442 back.</p>
5443
5444       </div>
5445       <div class="tags">
5446
5447
5448         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>.
5449
5450
5451       </div>
5452     </div>
5453     <div class="padding"></div>
5454
5455     <div class="entry">
5456       <div class="title">
5457         <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>
5458       </div>
5459       <div class="date">
5460         10th July 2013
5461       </div>
5462       <div class="body">
5463         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
5464 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
5465 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
5466 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
5467 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
5468 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
5469 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
5470 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
5471
5472 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
5473 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
5474 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
5475 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
5476 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
5477 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
5478 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
5479 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
5480 lock up when I download a new
5481 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
5482 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
5483 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
5484
5485 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
5486 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
5487 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
5488 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
5489 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
5490 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
5491
5492 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
5493 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
5494 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
5495 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
5496 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
5497 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
5498
5499 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
5500 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
5501 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
5502 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
5503 exist).</p>
5504
5505       </div>
5506       <div class="tags">
5507
5508
5509         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>.
5510
5511
5512       </div>
5513     </div>
5514     <div class="padding"></div>
5515
5516     <div class="entry">
5517       <div class="title">
5518         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
5519       </div>
5520       <div class="date">
5521          9th July 2013
5522       </div>
5523       <div class="body">
5524         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
5525 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
5526 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
5527 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
5528 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5529 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
5530 Bitraf</a>.</p>
5531
5532 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
5533 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
5534 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
5535 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
5536 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
5537
5538       </div>
5539       <div class="tags">
5540
5541
5542         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>.
5543
5544
5545       </div>
5546     </div>
5547     <div class="padding"></div>
5548
5549     <div class="entry">
5550       <div class="title">
5551         <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>
5552       </div>
5553       <div class="date">
5554          5th July 2013
5555       </div>
5556       <div class="body">
5557         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
5558 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
5559 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
5560 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
5561 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
5562 ended up picking a
5563 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
5564 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
5565 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
5566 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
5567 on that below.</p>
5568
5569 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
5570 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
5571 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
5572 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
5573 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
5574 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
5575 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
5576 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
5577 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
5578
5579 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
5580 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
5581 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
5582 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
5583 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
5584 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
5585 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
5586
5587 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
5588 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
5589
5590 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
5591 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
5592 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
5593 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
5594 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
5595 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
5596 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
5597 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
5598 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
5599 kernel developers as
5600 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
5601 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
5602 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
5603 Lenovo forums, both for
5604 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
5605 2012-11-10</a> and for
5606 <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
5607 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
5608 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
5609 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
5610 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
5611 There is even a
5612 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
5613 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
5614 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
5615
5616 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
5617 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
5618 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
5619 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
5620 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
5621 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
5622 fixed. :)</p>
5623
5624       </div>
5625       <div class="tags">
5626
5627
5628         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>.
5629
5630
5631       </div>
5632     </div>
5633     <div class="padding"></div>
5634
5635     <div class="entry">
5636       <div class="title">
5637         <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>
5638       </div>
5639       <div class="date">
5640          4th July 2013
5641       </div>
5642       <div class="body">
5643         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
5644 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
5645 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
5646 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
5647 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
5648 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
5649 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
5650 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
5651 with an expencive door stop.</p>
5652
5653 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
5654 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
5655 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
5656 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
5657 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
5658 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
5659 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
5660
5661 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
5662 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
5663 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
5664 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
5665 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
5666 new laptop now. :)</p>
5667
5668 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
5669
5670       </div>
5671       <div class="tags">
5672
5673
5674         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>.
5675
5676
5677       </div>
5678     </div>
5679     <div class="padding"></div>
5680
5681     <div class="entry">
5682       <div class="title">
5683         <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>
5684       </div>
5685       <div class="date">
5686          3rd July 2013
5687       </div>
5688       <div class="body">
5689         <p>The fourth wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
5690 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
5691
5692 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~alpha3 released
5693 2013-07-03</strong></p>
5694
5695 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5696 7.1+edu0~alpha3, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
5697
5698 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
5699
5700 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
5701 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
5702 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
5703 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
5704 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
5705 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
5706 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
5707 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
5708 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
5709 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
5710 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
5711 desktop contains
5712 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
5713 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
5714 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
5715 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
5716
5717 <p>This is the fourth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
5718 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
5719 Squeeze release.</p>
5720
5721 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
5722 <ul>
5723   <li>Dropped ispell dictionaries from our default installation.</li>
5724   <li>Dropped menu-xdg from the KDE desktop option, to drop the Debian
5725     submenu.  It was not included with Gnome, LXDE or Xfce, so this
5726     brings KDE in line with the others.</li>
5727   <li>Dropped xdrawchem, xjig and xsok from our default installation as
5728     they don't have a desktop menu entry and thus won't show up in the
5729     menu now that menu-xdg was removed.</li>
5730   <li>Removed the killer system to kill left behind processes on
5731     multi-user machines, as it was no longer able to understand when a
5732     X display was in use and killed the processes of the active users
5733     too.</li>
5734   <li>Dropped the golearn (from goplay) package as the debtags in wheezy
5735     are too few to make the package useful.</li>
5736 </ul>
5737 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
5738 <ul>
5739   <li>Updated artwork matching http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Joy
5740   <li>Multi-arch i386/amd64 USB stick ISO available.</li>
5741   <li>Got rid of ispell/wordlist related debconf questions that showed
5742     up for some language options.</li>
5743   <li>Switched to using http.debian.net as APT source by default.</li>
5744   <li>Fixed proxy configuration on Main Server installations.</li>
5745   <li>Changed LTSP setup to ask dpkg to use force-unsafe-io the same way
5746     d-i is doing it.</li>
5747   <li>Made sure root and user passwords were not left behind in the
5748     debconf database after installation on Main Server installations.</li>
5749   <li>Made Roaming Workstation dynamic setup more robust and added draft
5750     script setup-ad-client to hook a Roaming Workstation up to a
5751     Active Directory server instead of a Debian Edu Main Server.</li>
5752   <li>Update system to install needed firmware packages during
5753     installation, to work properly in Wheezy.</li>
5754   <li>Update system to handle hardware quirks (debian-edu-hwsetup).</li>
5755   <li>Corrected PXE installation setup to properly pass selected desktop
5756     and keymap settings to PXE installation clients.</li>
5757   <li>LTSP diskless workstations use sshfs by default, allowing them to
5758     work without adding them to DNS and NIS netgroups for NFS access.</li>
5759 </ul>
5760 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
5761 <ul>
5762   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
5763     available yet (698840).</li>
5764   <li>Artwork not enabled for all desktops.</li>
5765 </ul>
5766 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
5767
5768 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
5769 <ul>
5770   <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>
5771   <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>
5772   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso .</li>
5773 </ul>
5774
5775 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 2b161a99d2a848c376d8d04e3854e30c
5776 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 498922e9c508c0a7ee9dbe1dfe5bf830d779c3c8</p>
5777
5778 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
5779 <ul>
5780   <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>
5781   <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>
5782   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso .</li>
5783 </ul>
5784
5785 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 25e808e403a4c15dbef1d13c37d572ac
5786 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 15ecfc93eb6b4f453b7eb0bc04b6a279262d9721</p>
5787
5788 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
5789
5790 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
5791
5792       </div>
5793       <div class="tags">
5794
5795
5796         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5797
5798
5799       </div>
5800     </div>
5801     <div class="padding"></div>
5802
5803     <div class="entry">
5804       <div class="title">
5805         <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>
5806       </div>
5807       <div class="date">
5808         25th June 2013
5809       </div>
5810       <div class="body">
5811         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
5812 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
5813 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
5814 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
5815 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
5816 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
5817 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
5818 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
5819 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
5820 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
5821 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
5822
5823 <p><pre>
5824 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
5825 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
5826 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
5827 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
5828 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
5829 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
5830 firmware-ipw2x00
5831 firmware-ipw2x00
5832 Preconfiguring packages ...
5833 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
5834 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
5835 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
5836 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
5837 #
5838 </pre></p>
5839
5840 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
5841 printed instead:</p>
5842
5843 <p><pre>
5844 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
5845 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
5846 #
5847 </pre></p>
5848
5849 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
5850 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
5851
5852 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
5853 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
5854 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
5855 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
5856 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
5857 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
5858 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
5859 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
5860 machine.</p>
5861
5862 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
5863 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
5864 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
5865 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
5866 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
5867 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
5868
5869       </div>
5870       <div class="tags">
5871
5872
5873         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
5874
5875
5876       </div>
5877     </div>
5878     <div class="padding"></div>
5879
5880     <div class="entry">
5881       <div class="title">
5882         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_value_of_a_good_distro_wide_test_suite___.html">The value of a good distro wide test suite...</a>
5883       </div>
5884       <div class="date">
5885         22nd June 2013
5886       </div>
5887       <div class="body">
5888         <p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
5889 Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
5890 which check that services are running, working, and return the
5891 expected results.  It runs automatically just after the first boot on
5892 test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
5893 installations (using non-test ISOs).  It test that the LDAP service is
5894 operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
5895 online resizable, etc, etc.  And it check that the PXE service is
5896 configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
5897
5898 <p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
5899 Edu Wheezy release.  These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
5900 complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
5901 happen all the needed packages need to be on them.  Thanks to our test
5902 suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
5903 cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
5904 When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
5905 using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
5906 working packages to get it working.  And the packages changed name
5907 from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
5908 debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
5909 packages during installation.  Without our test suite, I suspect we
5910 would never have discovered this before release.  Now it is fixed
5911 right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
5912
5913 <p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
5914 administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
5915 test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
5916 any errors are detected.  This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
5917 the problem.</p>
5918
5919 <p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
5920 please join us on
5921 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
5922 irc.debian.org</a> and the
5923 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
5924 list.</p>
5925
5926       </div>
5927       <div class="tags">
5928
5929
5930         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5931
5932
5933       </div>
5934     </div>
5935     <div class="padding"></div>
5936
5937     <div class="entry">
5938       <div class="title">
5939         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html">Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</a>
5940       </div>
5941       <div class="date">
5942         17th June 2013
5943       </div>
5944       <div class="body">
5945         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
5946 Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
5947 globe.  And a while back, an enterprising young man showed up on
5948 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">our IRC channel
5949 #debian-edu</a> and started asking questions about how Debian Edu
5950 worked.  We answered as good as we could, and even convinced him to
5951 help us with translations.  And today I managed to get an interview
5952 with him, to learn more about him.</p>
5953
5954 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5955
5956 <p>I'm a 25 year old free software enthusiast, living in Romania,
5957 which is also my country of origin. Back in 2009, at a New Year's Eve
5958 party, I had a very nice <strike>beer</strike> discussion with a
5959 friend, when we realized we have no organised Debian community in our
5960 country. A few days later, we put together the infrastructure for such
5961 community and even gathered a nice Debian-ish crowd. Since then, I
5962 began my quest as a free software hacker and activist and I am
5963 constantly trying to cover as much ground as possible on that
5964 field.</p>
5965
5966 <p>A few years ago I founded a small web development company, which
5967 provided me the flexible schedule I needed so much for my
5968 activities. For the last 13 months, I have been the Technical Director
5969 of <a href="http://ceata.org/">Fundația Ceata</a>, which is a free
5970 software activist organisation endorsed by the FSF and the FSFE, and
5971 the only one we have in our country.</p>
5972
5973 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
5974 project?</strong></p>
5975
5976 <p>The idea of participating in the Debian Edu project was a surprise
5977 even to me, since I never used it before I began getting involved in
5978 it. This year I had a great opportunity to deliver a talk on
5979 educational software, and I knew immediately where to look. It was a
5980 love at first sight, since I was previously involved with some of the
5981 technologies the project incorporates, and I rapidly found a lot of
5982 ways to contribute.</p>
5983
5984 <p>My first contributions consisted in translating the installer and
5985 configuration dialogs, then I found some bugs to squash (I still
5986 haven't fixed them yet though), and I even got my eyes on some other
5987 areas where I can prove myself helpful. Since the appetite for free
5988 software in my country is pretty low, I'll be happy to be the first
5989 one around here advocating for the project's adoption in educational
5990 environments, and maybe even get my hands dirty in creating a flavour
5991 for our own needs. I am not used to make very advanced plannings, so
5992 from now on, time will tell what I'll be doing next, but I think I
5993 have a pretty consistent starting point.</p>
5994
5995 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5996 Edu?</strong></p>
5997
5998 <p>Not a long time ago, I was in the position of configuring and
5999 maintaining a LDAP server on some Debian derivative, and I must say it
6000 took me a while. A long time ago, I was maintaining a bigger
6001 Samba-powered infrastructure, and I must say I spent quite a lot of
6002 time on it. I have similar stories about many of the services included
6003 with Skolelinux, and the main advantage I see about it is the
6004 out-of-the box availability of them, making it quite competitive when
6005 it comes to managing a school's network, for example.</p>
6006
6007 <p>Of course, there is more to say about Skolelinux than the
6008 availability of the software included, its flexibility in various
6009 scenarios is something I can't wait to experiment "into the wild" (I
6010 only played with virtual machines so far). And I am sure there is a
6011 lot more I haven't discovered yet about it, being so new within the
6012 project.</p>
6013
6014 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6015 Edu?</strong></p>
6016
6017 <p>As usual, when it comes to Debian Blends, I see as the biggest
6018 disadvantage the lack of a numerous team dedicated to the
6019 project. Every day I see the same names in the changelogs, and I have
6020 a constantly fear of the bus factor in this story.  I'd like to see
6021 Debian Edu advertised more as an entry point into the Debian
6022 ecosystem, especially amongst newcomers and students. IMHO there are a
6023 lot low-hanging fruits in terms of bug squashing, and enough
6024 opportunities to get the feeling of the Debian Project's dynamics. Not
6025 to mention it's a very fun blend to work on!</p>
6026
6027 <p>Derived from the previous statement, is the delay in catching up
6028 with the main Debian release and documentation. This is common though
6029 to all blends and derivatives, but it's an issue we can all work
6030 on.</p>
6031
6032 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6033
6034 <p>I can hardly imagine myself spending a day without Vim, since my
6035 daily routine covers writing code and hacking configuration files. I
6036 am a fan of the Awesome window manager (but I also like the
6037 Enlightenment project a lot!),
6038 <a href="http://www.claws-mail.org/‎">Claws Mail</a> due to its ease of
6039 use and very configurable behaviour. Recently I fell in love with
6040 <a href="https://launchpad.net/redshift">Redshift</a>, which helps me
6041 get through the night without headaches. Of course, there is much more
6042 stuff in this bag, but I'll need a blog on my own for doing this!</p>
6043
6044 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6045 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6046
6047 <p>Well, on this field, I cannot do much more than experiment right
6048 now. So, being far from having a recipe for success, I can only assume
6049 that:</p>
6050
6051 <ul>
6052
6053 <li>schools would like to get rid of proprietary software</li>
6054
6055 <li>students will love the openness of the system, and will want to
6056     experiment with it - maybe we need to harvest the native curiosity
6057     of teenagers more?</li>
6058
6059 <li>there is no "right one" when it comes to strategies, but it would
6060     be useful to have some success stories published somewhere, so
6061     other can get some inspiration from them (I know I'd promote
6062     them!)</li>
6063
6064 <li>more active promotion - talks, conferences, even small school
6065     lectures can do magical things if they encounter at least one
6066     person interested. Who knows who that person might be? ;-)</li>
6067
6068 </ul>
6069
6070 <p>I also see some problems in getting Skolelinux into schools; for
6071 example, in our country we have a great deal of corruption issues, so
6072 it might be hard(er) to fight against proprietary solutions. Also,
6073 people who relied on commercial software for all their lives, would be
6074 very hard to convert against their will.</p>
6075
6076       </div>
6077       <div class="tags">
6078
6079
6080         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6081
6082
6083       </div>
6084     </div>
6085     <div class="padding"></div>
6086
6087     <div class="entry">
6088       <div class="title">
6089         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a>
6090       </div>
6091       <div class="date">
6092         12th June 2013
6093       </div>
6094       <div class="body">
6095         <p>There is a certain cross-over between the
6096 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6097 project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
6098 project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
6099 effort between the projects.  One person with a foot in both camps is
6100 Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
6101
6102 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6103
6104 <p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
6105 days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
6106 getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
6107
6108 <p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
6109 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
6110 each other.</p>
6111
6112 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
6113 project?</strong></p>
6114
6115 <p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
6116 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
6117 [Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
6118 London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
6119 Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
6120 it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
6121 was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
6122 day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
6123 over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
6124 been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
6125 still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
6126 we'll get there one day.</p>
6127
6128 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6129 Edu?</strong></p>
6130
6131 <p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
6132 it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
6133 that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
6134 very high quality work.</p>
6135
6136 <p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
6137 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
6138 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
6139 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
6140 community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
6141
6142 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6143 Edu?</strong></p>
6144
6145 <p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
6146 separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
6147 what I originally rambled on about)</p>
6148
6149 <p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
6150 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
6151 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
6152 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
6153 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
6154 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
6155 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
6156 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
6157 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
6158 currently.</p>
6159
6160 <p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
6161 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
6162 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
6163 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
6164 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
6165 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
6166 autonomous.</p>
6167
6168 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6169
6170 <p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
6171 Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
6172 some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
6173 particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
6174 so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
6175
6176 <p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
6177 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
6178 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
6179 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
6180 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
6181 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
6182 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
6183 X.</p>
6184
6185 <p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
6186 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
6187 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
6188 it :p)
6189
6190 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6191 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6192
6193 <p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
6194 many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
6195 don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
6196 that.</p>
6197
6198 <p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
6199 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
6200 advantage of that.</p>
6201
6202 <p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
6203 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
6204 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
6205 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
6206 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
6207 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
6208 best solution for them.</p>
6209
6210 <p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
6211 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
6212 make a decision that would work for them.</p>
6213
6214       </div>
6215       <div class="tags">
6216
6217
6218         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6219
6220
6221       </div>
6222     </div>
6223     <div class="padding"></div>
6224
6225     <div class="entry">
6226       <div class="title">
6227         <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>
6228       </div>
6229       <div class="date">
6230         11th June 2013
6231       </div>
6232       <div class="body">
6233         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
6234 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
6235 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
6236 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
6237 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
6238 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
6239 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
6240 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
6241 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
6242 i915 driver used by the
6243 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
6244 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
6245
6246 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
6247 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
6248 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
6249 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
6250 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
6251
6252 <pre>
6253 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
6254 update-initramfs -u -k all
6255 </pre>
6256
6257 <p>Since March 2012 there is
6258 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
6259 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
6260 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
6261 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
6262 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
6263 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
6264 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
6265 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
6266 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
6267 number.</p>
6268
6269 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
6270 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
6271
6272 <p><pre>
6273 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
6274     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
6275     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
6276  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
6277  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
6278     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
6279  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
6280     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
6281  Latency: 0
6282  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
6283  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
6284  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
6285  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
6286  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
6287  Capabilities: <access denied>
6288  Kernel driver in use: i915
6289 </pre></p>
6290
6291 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
6292
6293 <p><pre>
6294 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
6295        ...
6296         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
6297         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
6298        ...
6299 }
6300 </pre></p>
6301
6302 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
6303 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
6304 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
6305 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
6306 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
6307 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
6308 yet shown up in
6309 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
6310 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
6311 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
6312 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
6313 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
6314 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
6315
6316 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
6317 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
6318 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
6319 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
6320 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
6321 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
6322 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
6323 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
6324 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
6325 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
6326 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
6327 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
6328
6329 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
6330 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
6331 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
6332 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
6333 backlight.</p>
6334
6335       </div>
6336       <div class="tags">
6337
6338
6339         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>.
6340
6341
6342       </div>
6343     </div>
6344     <div class="padding"></div>
6345
6346     <div class="entry">
6347       <div class="title">
6348         <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>
6349       </div>
6350       <div class="date">
6351         10th June 2013
6352       </div>
6353       <div class="body">
6354         <p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
6355 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
6356
6357 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
6358 2013-06-10</strong></p>
6359
6360 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
6361 alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
6362
6363 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
6364
6365 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
6366 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
6367 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
6368 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
6369 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
6370 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
6371 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
6372 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
6373 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
6374 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
6375 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
6376 desktop contains
6377 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
6378 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
6379 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
6380 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
6381
6382 <p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
6383 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
6384 Squeeze release.</p>
6385
6386 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
6387
6388 <ul>
6389
6390 <li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
6391 <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).
6392 <li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
6393 <li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
6394 <li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
6395
6396 </ul>
6397
6398 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
6399
6400 <ul>
6401
6402 <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.
6403 <li>Updated translation of the installation.
6404 <li>New Romanian translation.
6405 <li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
6406 <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).
6407 <li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
6408 <li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
6409 <li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
6410 <li>More testsuite tests.
6411 <li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
6412 <li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
6413
6414 <li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
6415 LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
6416
6417 <li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
6418 them up with GOsa².</li>
6419
6420 <li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
6421
6422 <li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
6423 slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
6424 entered password). </li>
6425
6426 </ul>
6427
6428 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
6429
6430 <ul>
6431
6432 <li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
6433
6434 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
6435 available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
6436 missing import feature).</li>
6437
6438 <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
6439
6440 <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
6441 own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
6442 unfixed.</li>
6443
6444 </ul>
6445
6446 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
6447
6448 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
6449
6450 <ul>
6451
6452 <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>
6453
6454 <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>
6455
6456 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
6457
6458 </ul>
6459
6460 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
6461 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
6462
6463 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
6464
6465 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
6466
6467       </div>
6468       <div class="tags">
6469
6470
6471         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6472
6473
6474       </div>
6475     </div>
6476     <div class="padding"></div>
6477
6478     <div class="entry">
6479       <div class="title">
6480         <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>
6481       </div>
6482       <div class="date">
6483          5th June 2013
6484       </div>
6485       <div class="body">
6486         <p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
6487 We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
6488 hope to get released soon.  The two problems require some with PHP
6489 skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
6490 the project:
6491
6492 <ol>
6493
6494 <li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
6495   (slbackup-php) using the root user and password.  This is
6496   <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
6497   This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
6498   Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
6499
6500 <li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
6501   using ldif nor using CSV files.  The feature was disabled after a
6502   major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
6503   This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
6504   #698840</a>.</li>
6505
6506 </ol>
6507
6508 <p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
6509 (<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
6510 irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
6511
6512       </div>
6513       <div class="tags">
6514
6515
6516         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6517
6518
6519       </div>
6520     </div>
6521     <div class="padding"></div>
6522
6523     <div class="entry">
6524       <div class="title">
6525         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a>
6526       </div>
6527       <div class="date">
6528          4th June 2013
6529       </div>
6530       <div class="body">
6531         <p>It has been a while since my last English
6532 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
6533 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
6534 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
6535 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
6536 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
6537
6538 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6539
6540 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
6541 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
6542 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
6543 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
6544
6545 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
6546 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
6547 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
6548
6549 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
6550 project?</strong></p>
6551
6552 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
6553 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
6554 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
6555 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
6556 manual.
6557
6558 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
6559 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
6560 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
6561 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
6562
6563 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
6564 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
6565 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
6566 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
6567 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
6568 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
6569 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
6570 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
6571 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
6572 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
6573
6574 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
6575 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
6576 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
6577 beautiful project.</p>
6578
6579 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6580 Edu?</strong></p>
6581
6582 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
6583 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
6584 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
6585
6586 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
6587 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
6588 of educational free software.</p>
6589
6590 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6591 Edu?</strong></p>
6592
6593 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
6594 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
6595 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
6596 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
6597 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
6598
6599 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
6600 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
6601 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
6602 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
6603 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
6604 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
6605 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
6606 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
6607
6608 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6609
6610 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
6611 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
6612 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
6613 also using the mathematical software
6614 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
6615 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
6616 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
6617
6618 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
6619 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
6620 statistics?</strong></p>
6621
6622 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
6623 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
6624 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
6625 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
6626
6627 <ul>
6628
6629 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
6630 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
6631 constructions in planar geometry
6632
6633 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
6634 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
6635 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
6636
6637 </ul>
6638
6639 <p>I like also
6640 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
6641 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
6642 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
6643
6644 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6645 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6646
6647 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
6648
6649 <ul>
6650
6651 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
6652
6653 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
6654     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
6655     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
6656
6657 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
6658
6659 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
6660     system.</li>
6661
6662 </ul>
6663
6664       </div>
6665       <div class="tags">
6666
6667
6668         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6669
6670
6671       </div>
6672     </div>
6673     <div class="padding"></div>
6674
6675     <div class="entry">
6676       <div class="title">
6677         <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>
6678       </div>
6679       <div class="date">
6680          1st June 2013
6681       </div>
6682       <div class="body">
6683         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
6684 Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
6685 Created to help teachers teach, and pupils learn.  We have tried to
6686 tag them all using debtags use::learning and role::program, and using
6687 the debtags I was happy to be able to create a collage of the
6688 educational software packages installed by default, sorted by the
6689 debtag field.  Here it is.  Click on a image to learn more about the
6690 program.</p>
6691
6692 <!-- 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 -->
6693
6694 <p><strong>field::arts</strong></p>
6695 <p>
6696 <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>
6697 <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>
6698 <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>
6699 <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>
6700 <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>
6701 <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>
6702 <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>
6703 <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>
6704 <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>
6705 <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>
6706 <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>
6707 <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>
6708 <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>
6709 <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>
6710 </p>
6711
6712 <p><strong>field::astronomy</strong></p>
6713 <p>
6714 <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>
6715 <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>
6716 <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>
6717 <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>
6718 <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>
6719 <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>
6720 </p>
6721
6722 <p><strong>field::biology:structural</strong></p>
6723 <p>
6724 <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>
6725 </p>
6726
6727 <p><strong>field::chemistry</strong></p>
6728 <p>
6729 <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>
6730 <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>
6731 <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>
6732 <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>
6733 <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>
6734 <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>
6735 <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>
6736 <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>
6737 <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>
6738 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=viewmol'>[viewmol]</a>
6739 <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>
6740 </p>
6741
6742 <p><strong>field::electronics</strong></p>
6743 <p>
6744 <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>
6745 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpsim'>[gpsim]</a>
6746 </p>
6747
6748 <p><strong>field::geography</strong></p>
6749 <p>
6750 <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>
6751 <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>
6752 <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>
6753 </p>
6754
6755 <p><strong>field::linguistics</strong></p>
6756 <p>
6757 <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>
6758 <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>
6759 <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>
6760 <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>
6761 <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>
6762 </p>
6763
6764 <p><strong>field::mathematics</strong></p>
6765 <p>
6766 <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>
6767 <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>
6768 <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>
6769 <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>
6770 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geomview'>[geomview]</a>
6771 <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>
6772 <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>
6773 <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>
6774 <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>
6775 <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>
6776 <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>
6777 <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>
6778 <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>
6779 <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>
6780 <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>
6781 <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>
6782 <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>
6783 </p>
6784
6785 <p><strong>field::physics</strong></p>
6786 <p>
6787 <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>
6788 <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>
6789 </p>
6790
6791 <p><strong>field::TODO</strong></p>
6792 <p>
6793 <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>
6794 <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>
6795 <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>
6796 <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>
6797 <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>
6798 <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>
6799 <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>
6800 <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>
6801 <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>
6802 <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>
6803 </p>
6804
6805 <p>In total, 61 applications.  3 of them lacked screen shots on
6806 <a href="http://screenshot.debian.net">screenshot.debian.net</a>.  If
6807 you know of some packages we should install by default, please let us
6808 know on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu
6809 on irc.debian.org</a>, or our
6810 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">mailing list
6811 debian-edu@</a>.</p>
6812
6813       </div>
6814       <div class="tags">
6815
6816
6817         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6818
6819
6820       </div>
6821     </div>
6822     <div class="padding"></div>
6823
6824     <div class="entry">
6825       <div class="title">
6826         <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>
6827       </div>
6828       <div class="date">
6829         27th May 2013
6830       </div>
6831       <div class="body">
6832         <p>Two days ago, I asked
6833 <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
6834 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
6835 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
6836 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
6837 and Windows 8.</p>
6838
6839 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
6840 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
6841 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
6842 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
6843 enough to tell.</p>
6844
6845 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
6846 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
6847 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
6848 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
6849 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
6850 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
6851 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
6852 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
6853 to follow.</p>
6854
6855 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
6856 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
6857 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
6858 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
6859 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
6860 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
6861 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
6862 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
6863
6864 <p>I've updated the
6865 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
6866 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
6867 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
6868 machine.</p>
6869
6870 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
6871 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
6872
6873       </div>
6874       <div class="tags">
6875
6876
6877         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>.
6878
6879
6880       </div>
6881     </div>
6882     <div class="padding"></div>
6883
6884     <div class="entry">
6885       <div class="title">
6886         <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>
6887       </div>
6888       <div class="date">
6889         25th May 2013
6890       </div>
6891       <div class="body">
6892         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
6893 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
6894 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
6895 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
6896 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
6897 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
6898
6899 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
6900 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
6901 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
6902 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
6903 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
6904 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
6905 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
6906 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
6907 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
6908 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
6909
6910 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
6911 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
6912 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
6913 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
6914 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
6915 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
6916
6917 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
6918 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
6919 on new Laptops?</p>
6920
6921       </div>
6922       <div class="tags">
6923
6924
6925         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>.
6926
6927
6928       </div>
6929     </div>
6930     <div class="padding"></div>
6931
6932     <div class="entry">
6933       <div class="title">
6934         <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>
6935       </div>
6936       <div class="date">
6937         17th May 2013
6938       </div>
6939       <div class="body">
6940         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
6941 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
6942 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
6943 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
6944 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
6945 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
6946 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
6947 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
6948 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
6949 donate some money</a>.
6950
6951 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
6952 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
6953 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
6954 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
6955 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
6956
6957 <p>The script,
6958 <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/>
6959 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
6960 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
6961 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
6962
6963 <ol>
6964
6965 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
6966 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
6967 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
6968     our configuration.</li>
6969 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
6970     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
6971     according to the profile specified in the config above,
6972     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
6973 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
6974     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
6975 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
6976
6977 </ol>
6978
6979 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
6980 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
6981 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
6982 the needed packages.</p>
6983
6984 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
6985 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
6986 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
6987 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
6988 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
6989 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
6990
6991 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
6992 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
6993 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
6994
6995 <p><pre>
6996 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
6997 DESKTOP="lxde"
6998 </pre></p>
6999
7000 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
7001 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
7002 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
7003 boot.</p>
7004
7005       </div>
7006       <div class="tags">
7007
7008
7009         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>.
7010
7011
7012       </div>
7013     </div>
7014     <div class="padding"></div>
7015
7016     <div class="entry">
7017       <div class="title">
7018         <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>
7019       </div>
7020       <div class="date">
7021         14th May 2013
7022       </div>
7023       <div class="body">
7024         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7025 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
7026 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
7027
7028 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
7029 2013-05-14</strong></p>
7030
7031 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
7032 alpha1, based on <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
7033 codename "Wheezy".</p>
7034
7035 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
7036
7037 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
7038 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
7039 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
7040 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
7041 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
7042 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
7043 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
7044 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
7045
7046 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
7047 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
7048 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
7049
7050 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
7051 <ul>
7052   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
7053     default.</li>
7054   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
7055   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
7056   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
7057     ibus-anthy.</li>
7058 </ul>
7059
7060 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
7061 <ul>
7062
7063   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
7064     reliability improvements.</li>
7065   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
7066     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
7067   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
7068     problems.</li>
7069   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
7070     direct:// URL.</li>
7071   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
7072   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
7073   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
7074   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
7075     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
7076   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
7077     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
7078 </ul>
7079
7080 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
7081 <ul>
7082
7083   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
7084     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
7085     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
7086   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
7087   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
7088     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
7089   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
7090   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
7091   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
7092     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
7093   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
7094     password submission problem
7095     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
7096
7097 </ul>
7098
7099 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
7100
7101 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
7102 <ul>
7103
7104   <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>
7105   <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>
7106   <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>
7107
7108 </ul>
7109
7110 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
7111
7112 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
7113
7114 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
7115
7116 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
7117
7118       </div>
7119       <div class="tags">
7120
7121
7122         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7123
7124
7125       </div>
7126     </div>
7127     <div class="padding"></div>
7128
7129     <div class="entry">
7130       <div class="title">
7131         <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>
7132       </div>
7133       <div class="date">
7134         11th May 2013
7135       </div>
7136       <div class="body">
7137         <P>In January,
7138 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
7139 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
7140 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
7141 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
7142 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
7143 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
7144 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
7145 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
7146 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
7147 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
7148 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
7149 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
7150
7151 <p><table>
7152 <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>
7153 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
7154 <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>
7155 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
7156 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
7157 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
7158 <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>
7159 <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>
7160 <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>
7161 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
7162 </table></p>
7163
7164 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
7165 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
7166 available in experimental.</p>
7167
7168 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
7169 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
7170 for LEGO designers.</p>
7171
7172       </div>
7173       <div class="tags">
7174
7175
7176         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>.
7177
7178
7179       </div>
7180     </div>
7181     <div class="padding"></div>
7182
7183     <div class="entry">
7184       <div class="title">
7185         <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>
7186       </div>
7187       <div class="date">
7188          5th May 2013
7189       </div>
7190       <div class="body">
7191         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
7192 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
7193 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
7194 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
7195 soon.</p>
7196
7197 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
7198 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
7199 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
7200 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
7201 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
7202 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
7203 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
7204 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
7205 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
7206 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
7207 Edu.</a>
7208
7209 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
7210 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
7211 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
7212 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
7213 follow.<p>
7214
7215       </div>
7216       <div class="tags">
7217
7218
7219         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>.
7220
7221
7222       </div>
7223     </div>
7224     <div class="padding"></div>
7225
7226     <div class="entry">
7227       <div class="title">
7228         <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>
7229       </div>
7230       <div class="date">
7231         26th April 2013
7232       </div>
7233       <div class="body">
7234         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
7235 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
7236 announcement:</p>
7237
7238 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
7239 2013-04-26</strong></p>
7240
7241 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
7242 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
7243
7244 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
7245
7246 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
7247 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
7248 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
7249 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
7250 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
7251 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
7252 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
7253 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
7254 installed via the network.</p>
7255
7256 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
7257 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
7258 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
7259
7260 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
7261
7262 <ul>
7263 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
7264   <ul>
7265      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
7266      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
7267          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
7268          manual.)</li>
7269      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
7270      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
7271      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
7272      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
7273      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
7274      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
7275      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
7276      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
7277      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
7278      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
7279      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
7280      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
7281          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
7282          manual</a> for more details.</li>
7283      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
7284          installation.</li>
7285      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
7286          <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>
7287   </ul></li>
7288 </ul>
7289
7290 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
7291 <ul>
7292 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
7293     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
7294     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
7295 </ul>
7296
7297 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
7298 <ul>
7299 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
7300     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
7301     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
7302 </ul>
7303
7304 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
7305 <ul>
7306 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
7307     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
7308     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
7309 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
7310     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
7311     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
7312 </ul>
7313
7314 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
7315 <ul>
7316 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
7317     yet.</li>
7318 </ul>
7319
7320 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
7321
7322 <ul>
7323 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
7324     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
7325     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
7326 </ul>
7327
7328 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
7329
7330 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
7331 <ul>
7332 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
7333 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
7334 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
7335 </ul>
7336
7337 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
7338
7339 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
7340
7341 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
7342
7343 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
7344
7345       </div>
7346       <div class="tags">
7347
7348
7349         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7350
7351
7352       </div>
7353     </div>
7354     <div class="padding"></div>
7355
7356     <div class="entry">
7357       <div class="title">
7358         <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>
7359       </div>
7360       <div class="date">
7361         16th April 2013
7362       </div>
7363       <div class="body">
7364         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
7365 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
7366 Details about the gathering can be found
7367 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
7368 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
7369 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
7370 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
7371 weekend.</p>
7372
7373 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
7374 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
7375 Edu release.</p>
7376
7377 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
7378
7379       </div>
7380       <div class="tags">
7381
7382
7383         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7384
7385
7386       </div>
7387     </div>
7388     <div class="padding"></div>
7389
7390     <div class="entry">
7391       <div class="title">
7392         <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>
7393       </div>
7394       <div class="date">
7395          3rd April 2013
7396       </div>
7397       <div class="body">
7398         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
7399 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
7400 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
7401 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
7402
7403 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
7404 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
7405 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
7406 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
7407 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
7408 BTS. :)</p>
7409
7410       </div>
7411       <div class="tags">
7412
7413
7414         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>.
7415
7416
7417       </div>
7418     </div>
7419     <div class="padding"></div>
7420
7421     <div class="entry">
7422       <div class="title">
7423         <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>
7424       </div>
7425       <div class="date">
7426         26th March 2013
7427       </div>
7428       <div class="body">
7429         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
7430 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
7431 font you use when printing.</p>
7432
7433 <p>Three years ago,
7434 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
7435 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
7436 changed their default front from
7437 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
7438 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
7439 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
7440 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
7441 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
7442 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
7443 prints.</p>
7444
7445 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
7446 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
7447 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
7448 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
7449 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
7450 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
7451 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
7452 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
7453 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
7454 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
7455 depend on the documents printed.</p>
7456
7457 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
7458 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
7459 and save some money in the process.</p>
7460
7461 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
7462 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
7463 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
7464 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
7465 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
7466 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
7467 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
7468 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
7469 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
7470
7471       </div>
7472       <div class="tags">
7473
7474
7475         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7476
7477
7478       </div>
7479     </div>
7480     <div class="padding"></div>
7481
7482     <div class="entry">
7483       <div class="title">
7484         <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>
7485       </div>
7486       <div class="date">
7487         24th March 2013
7488       </div>
7489       <div class="body">
7490         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
7491 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
7492 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
7493 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
7494 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
7495 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
7496 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
7497 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
7498 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
7499 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
7500 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
7501 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
7502
7503 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
7504 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
7505 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
7506 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
7507 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
7508 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
7509 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
7510 all I had to do was to use the
7511 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
7512 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
7513 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
7514 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
7515 xsltproc/fop (aka
7516 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
7517 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
7518 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
7519 technical detail.</p>
7520
7521 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
7522 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
7523 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
7524 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
7525 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
7526 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
7527
7528 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
7529 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
7530 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
7531 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
7532 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
7533 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
7534 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
7535 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
7536 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
7537
7538 <p><blockquote><pre>
7539 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
7540 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
7541   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
7542     &lt;hr/&gt;
7543   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
7544 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
7545 </pre></blockquote></p>
7546
7547 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
7548
7549 <p><blockquote><pre>
7550 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
7551 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
7552   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
7553     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
7554       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
7555     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
7556   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
7557 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
7558 </pre></blockquote></p>
7559
7560 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
7561 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
7562 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
7563 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
7564 enough.</p>
7565
7566 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
7567 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
7568 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
7569 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
7570 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
7571 look like this:</p>
7572
7573 <p><blockquote><pre>
7574 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
7575 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
7576   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
7577     &lt;br/&gt;
7578   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
7579 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
7580 </pre></blockquote></p>
7581
7582 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
7583
7584 <p><blockquote><pre>
7585 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
7586 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
7587   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
7588   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
7589     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
7590   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
7591 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
7592 </pre></blockquote></p>
7593
7594 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
7595 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
7596 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
7597 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
7598 page.</p>
7599
7600 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
7601 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
7602 github</a>
7603 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
7604 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
7605 days.</p>
7606
7607       </div>
7608       <div class="tags">
7609
7610
7611         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>.
7612
7613
7614       </div>
7615     </div>
7616     <div class="padding"></div>
7617
7618     <div class="entry">
7619       <div class="title">
7620         <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>
7621       </div>
7622       <div class="date">
7623         17th March 2013
7624       </div>
7625       <div class="body">
7626         <p>Via
7627 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
7628 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
7629 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
7630 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
7631 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
7632 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
7633 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
7634
7635 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
7636 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
7637
7638 <blockquote>
7639 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
7640 </blockquote>
7641
7642 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
7643
7644 <blockquote>
7645 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
7646 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
7647 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
7648 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
7649 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
7650 </blockquote>
7651
7652 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
7653 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
7654 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
7655 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
7656
7657 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
7658 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
7659
7660 <blockquote>
7661 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
7662 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
7663 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
7664 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
7665 </blockquote>
7666
7667 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
7668 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
7669 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
7670 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
7671 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
7672
7673 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
7674 embedding:</p>
7675
7676 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
7677
7678       </div>
7679       <div class="tags">
7680
7681
7682         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7683
7684
7685       </div>
7686     </div>
7687     <div class="padding"></div>
7688
7689     <div class="entry">
7690       <div class="title">
7691         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
7692       </div>
7693       <div class="date">
7694          8th March 2013
7695       </div>
7696       <div class="body">
7697         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
7698 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
7699 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
7700 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
7701 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
7702 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
7703 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
7704
7705 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
7706
7707 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
7708 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
7709
7710 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
7711 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
7712 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
7713 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
7714 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
7715 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
7716
7717 <p>Images are available for download at
7718 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
7719
7720 <p>md5sums:
7721 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
7722 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
7723 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
7724
7725 <p>sha1sums:
7726 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
7727 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
7728 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
7729
7730 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
7731
7732 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
7733 2013-03-03:</p>
7734
7735 <ul>
7736   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
7737   <ul>
7738         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
7739         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
7740   </ul></li>
7741   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
7742   <ul>
7743         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
7744         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
7745   </ul></li>
7746   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
7747      <ul>
7748         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
7749         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
7750         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
7751                 Closes: #664596</li>
7752         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
7753                 Closes: #664976</li>
7754         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
7755            <ul>
7756                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
7757                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
7758            </ul></li>
7759         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
7760            <ul>
7761                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
7762                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
7763                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
7764                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
7765                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
7766            </ul></li>
7767         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
7768     </ul>
7769   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
7770     <ul>
7771         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
7772     </ul></li>
7773 </ul>
7774
7775 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
7776 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
7777 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
7778 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
7779
7780 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
7781 mailinglist
7782 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
7783 </p></blockquote>
7784
7785 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
7786
7787       </div>
7788       <div class="tags">
7789
7790
7791         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7792
7793
7794       </div>
7795     </div>
7796     <div class="padding"></div>
7797
7798     <div class="entry">
7799       <div class="title">
7800         <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>
7801       </div>
7802       <div class="date">
7803          3rd March 2013
7804       </div>
7805       <div class="body">
7806         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
7807 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
7808 support using
7809 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
7810 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
7811 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
7812 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
7813 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
7814 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
7815 using the GNU LGPL, and
7816 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
7817
7818 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
7819 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
7820 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
7821 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
7822 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
7823 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
7824
7825 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
7826 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
7827 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
7828 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
7829 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
7830 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
7831 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
7832 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
7833 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
7834 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
7835 signal distribution is handled using
7836 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
7837 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
7838 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
7839 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
7840 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
7841 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
7842 them up a bit more first.</p>
7843
7844 <p>The development is coordinated on the
7845 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
7846 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
7847 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
7848 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
7849 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
7850 development.</p>
7851
7852       </div>
7853       <div class="tags">
7854
7855
7856         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>.
7857
7858
7859       </div>
7860     </div>
7861     <div class="padding"></div>
7862
7863     <div class="entry">
7864       <div class="title">
7865         <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>
7866       </div>
7867       <div class="date">
7868         27th February 2013
7869       </div>
7870       <div class="body">
7871         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
7872 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
7873 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
7874 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
7875 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
7876 (where I am the chair of the board) and
7877 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
7878 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
7879 GNU», with this description:
7880
7881 <p><blockquote>
7882 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
7883 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
7884 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
7885 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
7886 </blockquote></p>
7887
7888 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
7889 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
7890 am really curious how many will show up.  See
7891 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
7892 page</a> for the location details.</p>
7893
7894       </div>
7895       <div class="tags">
7896
7897
7898         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>.
7899
7900
7901       </div>
7902     </div>
7903     <div class="padding"></div>
7904
7905     <div class="entry">
7906       <div class="title">
7907         <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>
7908       </div>
7909       <div class="date">
7910         15th February 2013
7911       </div>
7912       <div class="body">
7913         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
7914 now a great source of free maps available from
7915 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
7916 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
7917 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
7918 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
7919 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
7920 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
7921 page for descriptions).</p>
7922
7923 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
7924 map you can just edit the
7925 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
7926 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
7927
7928       </div>
7929       <div class="tags">
7930
7931
7932         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>.
7933
7934
7935       </div>
7936     </div>
7937     <div class="padding"></div>
7938
7939     <div class="entry">
7940       <div class="title">
7941         <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>
7942       </div>
7943       <div class="date">
7944         12th February 2013
7945       </div>
7946       <div class="body">
7947         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
7948 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
7949 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
7950 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
7951 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
7952 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
7953 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
7954 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
7955 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
7956 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
7957 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
7958 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
7959 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
7960 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
7961 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
7962 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
7963
7964 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
7965 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
7966 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
7967 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
7968 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
7969 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
7970 fields:</p>
7971
7972 <p><pre>
7973 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
7974 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
7975 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
7976 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
7977 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
7978 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
7979 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
7980 </pre></p>
7981
7982 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
7983 answer regarding
7984 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
7985 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
7986 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
7987 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
7988
7989 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
7990
7991 <p><pre>
7992 BEGIN:VCARD
7993 VERSION:2.1
7994 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
7995 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
7996 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
7997 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
7998 REV:20130212T095000Z
7999 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
8000 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
8001 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
8002 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
8003 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
8004 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
8005 END:VCARD
8006 </pre></p>
8007
8008 <p>The resulting QR code created using
8009 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
8010 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
8011 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
8012 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
8013 system.</p>
8014
8015 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
8016
8017 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
8018 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
8019 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
8020 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
8021
8022 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
8023 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
8024
8025       </div>
8026       <div class="tags">
8027
8028
8029         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>.
8030
8031
8032       </div>
8033     </div>
8034     <div class="padding"></div>
8035
8036     <div class="entry">
8037       <div class="title">
8038         <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>
8039       </div>
8040       <div class="date">
8041         10th February 2013
8042       </div>
8043       <div class="body">
8044         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
8045
8046 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
8047 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
8048 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
8049 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
8050 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
8051 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
8052 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
8053 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
8054 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
8055 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
8056 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
8057
8058 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
8059 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
8060 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
8061 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
8062 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
8063 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
8064 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
8065 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
8066 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
8067 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
8068 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
8069 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
8070 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
8071 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
8072 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
8073 ones own
8074 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
8075 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
8076 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
8077 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
8078 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
8079 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
8080 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
8081 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
8082 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
8083 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
8084 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
8085
8086 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
8087 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
8088 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
8089 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
8090 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
8091 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
8092
8093 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
8094 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
8095 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
8096
8097       </div>
8098       <div class="tags">
8099
8100
8101         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8102
8103
8104       </div>
8105     </div>
8106     <div class="padding"></div>
8107
8108     <div class="entry">
8109       <div class="title">
8110         <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>
8111       </div>
8112       <div class="date">
8113          2nd February 2013
8114       </div>
8115       <div class="body">
8116         <p>My
8117 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
8118 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
8119 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
8120 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
8121 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
8122 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
8123 version too.</p>
8124
8125 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
8126 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
8127 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
8128 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
8129 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
8130 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
8131 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
8132 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
8133
8134 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
8135 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
8136 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
8137 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
8138 it. :)</p>
8139
8140 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
8141 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
8142 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
8143
8144       </div>
8145       <div class="tags">
8146
8147
8148         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>.
8149
8150
8151       </div>
8152     </div>
8153     <div class="padding"></div>
8154
8155     <div class="entry">
8156       <div class="title">
8157         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
8158       </div>
8159       <div class="date">
8160         22nd January 2013
8161       </div>
8162       <div class="body">
8163         <p>Yesterday, I
8164 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
8165 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
8166 pluggable hardware devices, which I
8167 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
8168 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
8169 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
8170 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
8171 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
8172 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
8173 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
8174 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
8175 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
8176 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
8177
8178 <pre>
8179 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
8180 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
8181 </pre>
8182
8183 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
8184 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
8185 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
8186 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
8187
8188 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
8189 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
8190 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
8191 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
8192 word.</p>
8193
8194 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
8195 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
8196 process.</p>
8197
8198 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
8199 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
8200
8201       </div>
8202       <div class="tags">
8203
8204
8205         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>.
8206
8207
8208       </div>
8209     </div>
8210     <div class="padding"></div>
8211
8212     <div class="entry">
8213       <div class="title">
8214         <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>
8215       </div>
8216       <div class="date">
8217         21st January 2013
8218       </div>
8219       <div class="body">
8220         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
8221 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
8222 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
8223 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
8224 it, fetch the
8225 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
8226 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
8227 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
8228 autostart script.</p>
8229
8230 <p>The design is simple:</p>
8231
8232 <ul>
8233
8234 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
8235 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
8236
8237 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
8238 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
8239 initially did.</li>
8240
8241 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
8242 the APT database, a database
8243 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
8244 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
8245
8246 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
8247 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
8248 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
8249 package or packages.</li>
8250
8251 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
8252 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
8253
8254 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
8255 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
8256
8257 </ul>
8258
8259 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
8260 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
8261 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
8262 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
8263
8264 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
8265 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
8266 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
8267 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
8268 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
8269
8270 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
8271 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
8272 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
8273 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
8274 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
8275 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
8276 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
8277 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
8278
8279 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
8280 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
8281 '<tt>svn checkout
8282 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
8283 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
8284 devscripts package.</p>
8285
8286 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
8287 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
8288 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
8289 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
8290 instructions</a> for details.</p>
8291
8292       </div>
8293       <div class="tags">
8294
8295
8296         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>.
8297
8298
8299       </div>
8300     </div>
8301     <div class="padding"></div>
8302
8303     <div class="entry">
8304       <div class="title">
8305         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
8306       </div>
8307       <div class="date">
8308         19th January 2013
8309       </div>
8310       <div class="body">
8311         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
8312 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
8313 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
8314 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
8315 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
8316 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
8317 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
8318 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
8319 not a durable solution.
8320
8321 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
8322 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
8323
8324 <ul>
8325
8326 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
8327   than A4).</li>
8328 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
8329 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
8330 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
8331 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
8332 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
8333 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
8334 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
8335 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
8336 size).</li>
8337 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
8338   X.org packages.</li>
8339 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
8340   the time).
8341
8342 </ul>
8343
8344 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
8345 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
8346 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
8347 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
8348 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
8349 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
8350 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
8351 still be useful.</p>
8352
8353 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
8354 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
8355 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
8356 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
8357 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
8358 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
8359
8360       </div>
8361       <div class="tags">
8362
8363
8364         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>.
8365
8366
8367       </div>
8368     </div>
8369     <div class="padding"></div>
8370
8371     <div class="entry">
8372       <div class="title">
8373         <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>
8374       </div>
8375       <div class="date">
8376         18th January 2013
8377       </div>
8378       <div class="body">
8379         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
8380 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
8381 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
8382 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
8383 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
8384 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
8385 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
8386
8387 <pre>
8388 #!/usr/bin/python
8389 import sys
8390 import apt
8391 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
8392     cache = apt.Cache()
8393     cache.open(None)
8394     thepkgs = []
8395     for pkg in cache:
8396         version = pkg.candidate
8397         if version is None:
8398             version = pkg.installed
8399         if version is None:
8400             continue
8401         record = version.record
8402         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
8403             continue
8404         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
8405         for t in mime_types:
8406             t = t.rstrip().strip()
8407             if t == mimetype:
8408                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
8409     return thepkgs
8410 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
8411 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
8412     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
8413 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
8414 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
8415     print "  %s" %pkg
8416 </pre>
8417
8418 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
8419
8420 <pre>
8421 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
8422 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
8423   gecko-mediaplayer
8424 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
8425 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
8426   browser-plugin-gnash
8427 %
8428 </pre>
8429
8430 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
8431 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
8432 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
8433 anyone working on adding it?</p>
8434
8435 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
8436 request for icweasel support for this feature is
8437 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
8438 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
8439 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
8440 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
8441
8442       </div>
8443       <div class="tags">
8444
8445
8446         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>.
8447
8448
8449       </div>
8450     </div>
8451     <div class="padding"></div>
8452
8453     <div class="entry">
8454       <div class="title">
8455         <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>
8456       </div>
8457       <div class="date">
8458         16th January 2013
8459       </div>
8460       <div class="body">
8461         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
8462 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
8463 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
8464 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
8465 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
8466 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
8467 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
8468 downloaded by the browser.</p>
8469
8470 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
8471 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
8472 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
8473 can be found on the
8474 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
8475 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
8476 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
8477 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
8478 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
8479
8480 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
8481
8482 <pre>
8483   count MIME type
8484   ----- -----------------------
8485      32 text/plain
8486      30 audio/mpeg
8487      29 image/png
8488      28 image/jpeg
8489      27 application/ogg
8490      26 audio/x-mp3
8491      25 image/tiff
8492      25 image/gif
8493      22 image/bmp
8494      22 audio/x-wav
8495      20 audio/x-flac
8496      19 audio/x-mpegurl
8497      18 video/x-ms-asf
8498      18 audio/x-musepack
8499      18 audio/x-mpeg
8500      18 application/x-ogg
8501      17 video/mpeg
8502      17 audio/x-scpls
8503      17 audio/ogg
8504      16 video/x-ms-wmv
8505 </pre>
8506
8507 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
8508
8509 <pre>
8510   count MIME type
8511   ----- -----------------------
8512      33 text/plain
8513      32 image/png
8514      32 image/jpeg
8515      29 audio/mpeg
8516      27 image/gif
8517      26 image/tiff
8518      26 application/ogg
8519      25 audio/x-mp3
8520      22 image/bmp
8521      21 audio/x-wav
8522      19 audio/x-mpegurl
8523      19 audio/x-mpeg
8524      18 video/mpeg
8525      18 audio/x-scpls
8526      18 audio/x-flac
8527      18 application/x-ogg
8528      17 video/x-ms-asf
8529      17 text/html
8530      17 audio/x-musepack
8531      16 image/x-xbitmap
8532 </pre>
8533
8534 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
8535
8536 <pre>
8537   count MIME type
8538   ----- -----------------------
8539      31 text/plain
8540      31 image/png
8541      31 image/jpeg
8542      29 audio/mpeg
8543      28 application/ogg
8544      27 image/gif
8545      26 image/tiff
8546      26 audio/x-mp3
8547      23 audio/x-wav
8548      22 image/bmp
8549      21 audio/x-flac
8550      20 audio/x-mpegurl
8551      19 audio/x-mpeg
8552      18 video/x-ms-asf
8553      18 video/mpeg
8554      18 audio/x-scpls
8555      18 application/x-ogg
8556      17 audio/x-musepack
8557      16 video/x-ms-wmv
8558      16 video/x-msvideo
8559 </pre>
8560
8561 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
8562 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
8563 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
8564 issues.</p>
8565
8566 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
8567 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
8568
8569       </div>
8570       <div class="tags">
8571
8572
8573         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>.
8574
8575
8576       </div>
8577     </div>
8578     <div class="padding"></div>
8579
8580     <div class="entry">
8581       <div class="title">
8582         <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>
8583       </div>
8584       <div class="date">
8585         15th January 2013
8586       </div>
8587       <div class="body">
8588         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
8589 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
8590 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
8591 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
8592 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
8593 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
8594 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
8595 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
8596 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
8597 packages.</p>
8598
8599 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
8600 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
8601 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
8602 modalias.</p>
8603
8604 <p><blockquote>
8605 Package: package-name
8606 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
8607 </blockquote></p>
8608
8609 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
8610 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
8611
8612 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
8613 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
8614
8615 <p><blockquote>
8616 Package: cheese
8617 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
8618 </blockquote></p>
8619
8620 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
8621 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
8622
8623 <p><blockquote>
8624 Package: pcmciautils
8625 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
8626 </blockquote></p>
8627
8628 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
8629 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
8630
8631 <p><blockquote>
8632 Package: colorhug-client
8633 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
8634 </blockquote></p>
8635
8636 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
8637 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
8638 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
8639
8640 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
8641 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
8642 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
8643 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
8644 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
8645 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
8646 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
8647 Raring.</p>
8648
8649 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
8650 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
8651 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
8652 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
8653 try the
8654 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
8655 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
8656 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
8657 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
8658
8659 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
8660 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
8661
8662 <p><blockquote>
8663 % ./hw-support-lookup
8664 <br>yubikey-personalization
8665 <br>%
8666 </blockquote></p>
8667
8668 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
8669 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
8670
8671 <p><blockquote>
8672 % ./hw-support-lookup
8673 <br>pcmciautils
8674 <br>%
8675 </blockquote></p>
8676
8677 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
8678 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
8679 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
8680
8681 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
8682 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
8683 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
8684 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
8685 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
8686 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
8687 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
8688 see if it work.</p>
8689
8690 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
8691 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
8692 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
8693 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
8694
8695       </div>
8696       <div class="tags">
8697
8698
8699         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>.
8700
8701
8702       </div>
8703     </div>
8704     <div class="padding"></div>
8705
8706     <div class="entry">
8707       <div class="title">
8708         <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>
8709       </div>
8710       <div class="date">
8711         14th January 2013
8712       </div>
8713       <div class="body">
8714         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
8715 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
8716 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
8717 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
8718 in
8719 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
8720 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
8721
8722 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
8723
8724 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
8725 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
8726 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
8727 &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;,
8728 &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
8729 &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;.
8730
8731 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
8732 this shell script:</p>
8733
8734 <pre>
8735 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
8736 </pre>
8737
8738 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
8739 using modinfo:</p>
8740
8741 <pre>
8742 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
8743 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
8744 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
8745 %
8746 </pre>
8747
8748 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
8749
8750 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
8751 Bridge memory controller:</p>
8752
8753 <p><blockquote>
8754 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
8755 </blockquote></p>
8756
8757 <p>This represent these values:</p>
8758
8759 <pre>
8760  v   00008086  (vendor)
8761  d   00002770  (device)
8762  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
8763  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
8764  bc  06        (bus class)
8765  sc  00        (bus subclass)
8766  i   00        (interface)
8767 </pre>
8768
8769 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
8770 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
8771 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
8772 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
8773
8774 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
8775 means.</p>
8776
8777 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
8778
8779 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
8780 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
8781
8782 <p><blockquote>
8783 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
8784 </blockquote></p>
8785
8786 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
8787
8788 <pre>
8789  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
8790  p    0001  (device product)
8791  d    0206  (bcddevice)
8792  dc     09  (device class)
8793  dsc    00  (device subclass)
8794  dp     00  (device protocol)
8795  ic     09  (interface class)
8796  isc    00  (interface subclass)
8797  ip     00  (interface protocol)
8798 </pre>
8799
8800 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
8801 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
8802 these alias entries show up:</p>
8803
8804 <p><blockquote>
8805 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
8806 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
8807 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
8808 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
8809 </blockquote></p>
8810
8811 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
8812 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
8813 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
8814
8815 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
8816
8817 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
8818 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
8819
8820 <p><blockquote>
8821 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
8822 </blockquote></p>
8823
8824 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
8825
8826 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
8827
8828 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
8829 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
8830 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
8831
8832 <p><blockquote>
8833 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
8834 </blockquote></p>
8835
8836 <p>The values present are</p>
8837
8838 <pre>
8839  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
8840  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
8841  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
8842  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
8843  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
8844  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
8845  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
8846  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
8847  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
8848  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
8849  ct   10             (chassis type)
8850  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
8851 </pre>
8852
8853 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
8854 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
8855
8856 <pre>
8857   3 Desktop
8858   4 Low Profile Desktop
8859   5 Pizza Box
8860   6 Mini Tower
8861   7 Tower
8862   8 Portable
8863   9 Laptop
8864  10 Notebook
8865  11 Hand Held
8866  12 Docking Station
8867  13 All In One
8868  14 Sub Notebook
8869  15 Space-saving
8870  16 Lunch Box
8871  17 Main Server Chassis
8872  18 Expansion Chassis
8873  19 Sub Chassis
8874  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
8875  21 Peripheral Chassis
8876  22 RAID Chassis
8877  23 Rack Mount Chassis
8878  24 Sealed-case PC
8879  25 Multi-system
8880  26 CompactPCI
8881  27 AdvancedTCA
8882  28 Blade
8883  29 Blade Enclosing
8884 </pre>
8885
8886 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
8887 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
8888 claim it is a desktop.</p>
8889
8890 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
8891
8892 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
8893 test machine:</p>
8894
8895 <p><blockquote>
8896 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
8897 </blockquote></p>
8898
8899 <p>The values present are</p>
8900
8901 <pre>
8902   ty  01  (type)
8903   pr  00  (prototype)
8904   id  00  (id)
8905   ex  00  (extra)
8906 </pre>
8907
8908 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
8909 the valid values are.</p>
8910
8911 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
8912
8913 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
8914 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
8915 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
8916 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
8917 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
8918 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
8919 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
8920
8921 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
8922
8923 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
8924 one can use the following shell script:</p>
8925
8926 <pre>
8927   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
8928     echo "$id" ; \
8929     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
8930   done
8931 </pre>
8932
8933 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
8934 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
8935
8936 <pre>
8937   acpi:ACPI0003:
8938     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
8939   acpi:device:
8940   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
8941   acpi:IBM0068:
8942     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
8943     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
8944     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
8945     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
8946   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
8947     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
8948     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
8949     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
8950   [...]
8951 </pre>
8952
8953 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
8954 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
8955 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
8956 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
8957
8958 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
8959 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
8960 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
8961
8962       </div>
8963       <div class="tags">
8964
8965
8966         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>.
8967
8968
8969       </div>
8970     </div>
8971     <div class="padding"></div>
8972
8973     <div class="entry">
8974       <div class="title">
8975         <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>
8976       </div>
8977       <div class="date">
8978         10th January 2013
8979       </div>
8980       <div class="body">
8981         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
8982 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
8983 Launcher and updated the Debian package
8984 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
8985 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
8986 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
8987 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
8988 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
8989 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
8990 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
8991 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
8992 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
8993 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
8994 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
8995 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
8996 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
8997 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
8998 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
8999
9000       </div>
9001       <div class="tags">
9002
9003
9004         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
9005
9006
9007       </div>
9008     </div>
9009     <div class="padding"></div>
9010
9011     <div class="entry">
9012       <div class="title">
9013         <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>
9014       </div>
9015       <div class="date">
9016          9th January 2013
9017       </div>
9018       <div class="body">
9019         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
9020 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
9021 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
9022 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
9023 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
9024 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
9025 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
9026 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
9027 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
9028 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
9029 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
9030
9031 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
9032 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
9033 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
9034 simple:
9035
9036 <ul>
9037
9038 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
9039   starting when a user log in.</li>
9040
9041 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
9042   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
9043
9044 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
9045   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
9046   packages.</li>
9047
9048 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
9049   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
9050
9051 </ul>
9052
9053 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
9054 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
9055 discover database to find packages and
9056 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
9057 packages.</p>
9058
9059 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
9060 draft package is now checked into
9061 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
9062 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
9063 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
9064 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
9065 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
9066 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
9067 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
9068 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
9069 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
9070 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
9071 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
9072 because of the freeze).</p>
9073
9074 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
9075 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
9076 inserted):</p>
9077
9078 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
9079
9080 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
9081 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
9082 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
9083
9084 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
9085 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
9086 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
9087 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
9088 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
9089 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
9090 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
9091
9092 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
9093 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
9094 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
9095 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
9096 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
9097 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
9098 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
9099 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
9100 not be installed?</p>
9101
9102 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
9103 please send me an email. :)</p>
9104
9105       </div>
9106       <div class="tags">
9107
9108
9109         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>.
9110
9111
9112       </div>
9113     </div>
9114     <div class="padding"></div>
9115
9116     <div class="entry">
9117       <div class="title">
9118         <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>
9119       </div>
9120       <div class="date">
9121          2nd January 2013
9122       </div>
9123       <div class="body">
9124         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
9125 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
9126 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
9127 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
9128 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
9129 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
9130 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
9131 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
9132 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
9133 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
9134
9135 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
9136 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
9137 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
9138
9139       </div>
9140       <div class="tags">
9141
9142
9143         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>.
9144
9145
9146       </div>
9147     </div>
9148     <div class="padding"></div>
9149
9150     <div class="entry">
9151       <div class="title">
9152         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
9153       </div>
9154       <div class="date">
9155         28th December 2012
9156       </div>
9157       <div class="body">
9158         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
9159 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
9160 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
9161 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
9162 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
9163 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
9164 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
9165 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
9166 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
9167 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
9168 followed by many others. :)</p>
9169
9170 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
9171 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
9172 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
9173 you want to donate to the project.</p>
9174
9175       </div>
9176       <div class="tags">
9177
9178
9179         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9180
9181
9182       </div>
9183     </div>
9184     <div class="padding"></div>
9185
9186     <div class="entry">
9187       <div class="title">
9188         <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>
9189       </div>
9190       <div class="date">
9191         25th December 2012
9192       </div>
9193       <div class="body">
9194         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
9195 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
9196
9197 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
9198 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
9199 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
9200 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
9201 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
9202 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
9203 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
9204 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
9205 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
9206 name.</p>
9207
9208 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
9209 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
9210 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
9211
9212 <blockquote><pre>
9213 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
9214 cd bitcoin
9215 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
9216 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
9217 </pre></blockquote>
9218
9219 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
9220 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
9221 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
9222 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
9223 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
9224 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
9225 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
9226 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
9227 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
9228
9229 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
9230 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
9231 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
9232
9233       </div>
9234       <div class="tags">
9235
9236
9237         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>.
9238
9239
9240       </div>
9241     </div>
9242     <div class="padding"></div>
9243
9244     <div class="entry">
9245       <div class="title">
9246         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
9247       </div>
9248       <div class="date">
9249         21st December 2012
9250       </div>
9251       <div class="body">
9252         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
9253 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
9254 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
9255 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
9256 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
9257 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
9258 is now maintained by a
9259 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
9260 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
9261 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
9262 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
9263 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
9264 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
9265 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
9266 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
9267 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
9268 Corallo in a
9269 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
9270 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
9271 Debian package.</p>
9272
9273 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
9274 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
9275 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
9276 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
9277 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
9278 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
9279 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
9280 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
9281 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
9282 new version to unstable.
9283
9284 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
9285 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
9286 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
9287 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
9288 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
9289 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
9290 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
9291 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
9292 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
9293 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
9294 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
9295 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
9296 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
9297 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
9298 have not tested them.</p>
9299
9300 <p>My
9301 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
9302 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
9303 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
9304 years ago, as can be
9305 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
9306 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
9307 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
9308 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
9309 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
9310 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
9311 the same address as last time,
9312 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
9313
9314       </div>
9315       <div class="tags">
9316
9317
9318         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>.
9319
9320
9321       </div>
9322     </div>
9323     <div class="padding"></div>
9324
9325     <div class="entry">
9326       <div class="title">
9327         <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>
9328       </div>
9329       <div class="date">
9330         18th December 2012
9331       </div>
9332       <div class="body">
9333         <p>A few days ago I came across
9334 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
9335 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
9336 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
9337 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
9338 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
9339 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
9340 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
9341 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
9342 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
9343
9344 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
9345 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
9346 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
9347 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
9348
9349 <blockquote><pre>
9350 2004-05-27 Book Store
9351       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
9352       Liabilities:Visa
9353 </pre></blockquote>
9354
9355 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
9356 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
9357 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
9358 Spang</a>,
9359 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
9360 Keen</a>,
9361 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
9362 Cantino</a> and
9363 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
9364 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
9365 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
9366 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
9367 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
9368
9369 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
9370 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
9371 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
9372 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
9373 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
9374
9375 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
9376 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
9377 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
9378 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
9379 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
9380 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
9381 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
9382 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
9383 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
9384
9385       </div>
9386       <div class="tags">
9387
9388
9389         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9390
9391
9392       </div>
9393     </div>
9394     <div class="padding"></div>
9395
9396     <div class="entry">
9397       <div class="title">
9398         <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>
9399       </div>
9400       <div class="date">
9401          6th December 2012
9402       </div>
9403       <div class="body">
9404         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
9405 Oslo</a>, we use the
9406 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
9407 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
9408 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
9409 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
9410 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
9411 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
9412 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
9413 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
9414 Python.</p>
9415
9416 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
9417 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
9418 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
9419 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
9420 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
9421 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
9422
9423 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
9424 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
9425 user currently logged in:</p>
9426
9427 <blockquote><pre>
9428 #!/usr/bin/env python
9429 import getpass
9430 import xmlrpclib
9431 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
9432 username = getpass.getuser()
9433 password = getpass.getpass()
9434 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
9435 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
9436 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
9437 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
9438 result = server.logout(sessionid)
9439 print result
9440 </pre></blockquote>
9441
9442 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
9443 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
9444
9445       </div>
9446       <div class="tags">
9447
9448
9449         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>.
9450
9451
9452       </div>
9453     </div>
9454     <div class="padding"></div>
9455
9456     <div class="entry">
9457       <div class="title">
9458         <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>
9459       </div>
9460       <div class="date">
9461         17th November 2012
9462       </div>
9463       <div class="body">
9464         <p>While working on a
9465 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
9466 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
9467 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
9468 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
9469 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
9470 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
9471
9472 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
9473 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
9474 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
9475 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
9476 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
9477 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
9478 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
9479 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
9480 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
9481 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
9482 arguments.</p>
9483
9484 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
9485 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
9486 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
9487 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
9488 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
9489 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
9490 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
9491 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
9492
9493 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
9494 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
9495 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
9496 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
9497 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
9498 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
9499 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
9500 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
9501 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
9502 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
9503 correct right holder.</p>
9504
9505 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
9506 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
9507 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
9508 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
9509 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
9510 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
9511 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
9512 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
9513 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
9514 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
9515 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
9516 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
9517 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
9518 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
9519
9520 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
9521 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
9522 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
9523
9524 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
9525 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
9526
9527       </div>
9528       <div class="tags">
9529
9530
9531         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>.
9532
9533
9534       </div>
9535     </div>
9536     <div class="padding"></div>
9537
9538     <div class="entry">
9539       <div class="title">
9540         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
9541       </div>
9542       <div class="date">
9543         14th November 2012
9544       </div>
9545       <div class="body">
9546         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
9547 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
9548 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
9549 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
9550 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
9551 the people behind the German
9552 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
9553 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
9554 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
9555
9556 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9557
9558 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
9559 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
9560 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
9561
9562 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
9563 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
9564 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
9565 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
9566 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
9567 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
9568
9569 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
9570 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
9571 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
9572 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
9573 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
9574 relationship management and the communication processes in the
9575 project.</p>
9576
9577 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
9578 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
9579 and a yoga teacher.</p>
9580
9581 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
9582 project?</strong></p>
9583
9584 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
9585
9586 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
9587 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
9588 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
9589 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
9590 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
9591 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
9592 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
9593 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
9594 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
9595 parents.</p>
9596
9597 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
9598 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
9599 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
9600 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
9601 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
9602 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
9603 Germany.</p>
9604
9605 <p>For information about our school project you can read
9606 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
9607 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
9608
9609 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
9610 Edu?</strong></p>
9611
9612 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
9613 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
9614
9615 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
9616 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
9617 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
9618 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
9619 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
9620 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
9621 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
9622 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
9623 teachers, parents...</p>
9624
9625 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
9626 Edu?</strong></p>
9627
9628 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
9629 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
9630
9631 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
9632 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
9633 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
9634 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
9635 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
9636
9637 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
9638 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
9639 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
9640 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
9641 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
9642 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
9643 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
9644
9645 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9646
9647 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
9648 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
9649 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
9650 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
9651
9652 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9653 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9654
9655 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
9656 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
9657 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
9658 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
9659 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
9660
9661 <ul>
9662
9663 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
9664 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
9665 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
9666
9667 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
9668 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
9669 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
9670 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
9671 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
9672 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
9673 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
9674
9675 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
9676 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
9677 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
9678 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
9679
9680 </ul>
9681
9682       </div>
9683       <div class="tags">
9684
9685
9686         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9687
9688
9689       </div>
9690     </div>
9691     <div class="padding"></div>
9692
9693     <div class="entry">
9694       <div class="title">
9695         <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>
9696       </div>
9697       <div class="date">
9698          4th November 2012
9699       </div>
9700       <div class="body">
9701         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
9702 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
9703 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
9704 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
9705 see how a member of the bitcoin community
9706 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
9707 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
9708 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
9709 competition.  My thoughts go to the
9710 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
9711 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
9712 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
9713 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
9714 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
9715
9716 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
9717 that the community already seem to have
9718 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
9719 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
9720 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
9721 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
9722 wealth is available.</p>
9723
9724       </div>
9725       <div class="tags">
9726
9727
9728         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>.
9729
9730
9731       </div>
9732     </div>
9733     <div class="padding"></div>
9734
9735     <div class="entry">
9736       <div class="title">
9737         <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>
9738       </div>
9739       <div class="date">
9740         26th October 2012
9741       </div>
9742       <div class="body">
9743         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
9744 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
9745 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
9746 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
9747 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
9748 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
9749 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
9750 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
9751 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
9752 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
9753 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
9754 it every time.</p>
9755
9756 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
9757 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
9758 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
9759 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
9760 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
9761 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
9762 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
9763 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
9764 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
9765 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
9766 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
9767 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
9768
9769 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
9770 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
9771 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
9772 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
9773 article: First the unplanned outage:
9774
9775 <blockquote><pre>
9776 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
9777 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
9778 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
9779 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
9780 Duration:    40 minutes
9781 Scope:       Exchange 2003
9782 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
9783              a cluster failover.
9784
9785 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
9786              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
9787 Technician:  [xxx]
9788 </pre></blockquote>
9789
9790 Next the planned outage:
9791
9792 <blockquote><pre>
9793 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
9794 Severity:    Major (Planned)
9795 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
9796 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
9797 Duration:    10 hours
9798 Scope:       H2 Transport
9799 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
9800              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
9801              4510s.
9802 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
9803              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
9804              connectivity.
9805 Technician:  [xxx]
9806 </pre></blockquote>
9807
9808 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
9809 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
9810 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
9811 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
9812 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
9813 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
9814 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
9815
9816 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
9817 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
9818 university too.  We do register
9819 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
9820 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
9821 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
9822 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
9823 for other sites to consider too?</p>
9824
9825       </div>
9826       <div class="tags">
9827
9828
9829         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix</a>.
9830
9831
9832       </div>
9833     </div>
9834     <div class="padding"></div>
9835
9836     <div class="entry">
9837       <div class="title">
9838         <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>
9839       </div>
9840       <div class="date">
9841         22nd October 2012
9842       </div>
9843       <div class="body">
9844         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
9845 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
9846 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
9847 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
9848 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
9849 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
9850 background information is available in Norwegian from
9851 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
9852 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
9853 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
9854 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
9855 willing to
9856 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
9857 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
9858 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
9859 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
9860 sounded like
9861 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
9862 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
9863 later.</p>
9864
9865 <p>And thought this action is
9866 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
9867 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
9868 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
9869 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
9870 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
9871 rights.</p>
9872
9873 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
9874 unacceptable terms.  For example
9875 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
9876 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
9877 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
9878 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
9879 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
9880
9881 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
9882 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
9883 restored the account of the user, as reported by
9884 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
9885 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
9886 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
9887 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
9888 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
9889 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
9890 reading two opinions from
9891 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
9892 Phipps</a> and
9893 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
9894 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
9895 details about the original story.</p>
9896
9897       </div>
9898       <div class="tags">
9899
9900
9901         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>.
9902
9903
9904       </div>
9905     </div>
9906     <div class="padding"></div>
9907
9908     <div class="entry">
9909       <div class="title">
9910         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
9911       </div>
9912       <div class="date">
9913         18th October 2012
9914       </div>
9915       <div class="body">
9916         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
9917 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
9918 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
9919 across a marvellous drawing by
9920 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
9921 visualising some of what is going on.
9922
9923 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
9924 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
9925
9926 <blockquote>
9927 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
9928 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
9929 </blockquote>
9930
9931 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
9932 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
9933 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
9934 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
9935 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
9936 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
9937
9938       </div>
9939       <div class="tags">
9940
9941
9942         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>.
9943
9944
9945       </div>
9946     </div>
9947     <div class="padding"></div>
9948
9949     <div class="entry">
9950       <div class="title">
9951         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
9952       </div>
9953       <div class="date">
9954         12th October 2012
9955       </div>
9956       <div class="body">
9957         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
9958 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
9959 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
9960 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
9961 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
9962 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
9963 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
9964 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
9965 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
9966 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
9967 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
9968 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
9969 matter".</p>
9970
9971 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
9972 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
9973 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
9974 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
9975 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
9976 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
9977 to argue its side.</p>
9978
9979 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
9980 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
9981 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
9982 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
9983
9984 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
9985 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
9986 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
9987
9988       </div>
9989       <div class="tags">
9990
9991
9992         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>.
9993
9994
9995       </div>
9996     </div>
9997     <div class="padding"></div>
9998
9999     <div class="entry">
10000       <div class="title">
10001         <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>
10002       </div>
10003       <div class="date">
10004          3rd October 2012
10005       </div>
10006       <div class="body">
10007         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
10008 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
10009 the computer science book collection available in his local
10010 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
10011 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
10012 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
10013 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
10014 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
10015 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
10016 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
10017 recently published books.</p>
10018
10019 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
10020 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
10021 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
10022 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
10023 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
10024 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
10025 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
10026 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
10027 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
10028 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
10029 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
10030 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
10031 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
10032 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
10033 for the library that evening.</p>
10034
10035 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
10036 going to know that for example
10037 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
10038 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
10039 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
10040 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
10041 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
10042 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
10043 book right away.</p>
10044
10045       </div>
10046       <div class="tags">
10047
10048
10049         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10050
10051
10052       </div>
10053     </div>
10054     <div class="padding"></div>
10055
10056     <div class="entry">
10057       <div class="title">
10058         <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>
10059       </div>
10060       <div class="date">
10061         23rd September 2012
10062       </div>
10063       <div class="body">
10064         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
10065 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
10066 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
10067 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
10068 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
10069 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
10070
10071 When I started, I
10072 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
10073 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
10074 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
10075 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
10076 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
10077 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
10078 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
10079
10080 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
10081
10082 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
10083 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
10084 the project files currently available from
10085 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
10086
10087 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
10088 the updated
10089 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
10090 and
10091 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
10092 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
10093 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
10094 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
10095
10096       </div>
10097       <div class="tags">
10098
10099
10100         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>.
10101
10102
10103       </div>
10104     </div>
10105     <div class="padding"></div>
10106
10107     <div class="entry">
10108       <div class="title">
10109         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
10110       </div>
10111       <div class="date">
10112         17th September 2012
10113       </div>
10114       <div class="body">
10115         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
10116 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
10117 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
10118 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
10119 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
10120 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
10121 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
10122
10123 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10124
10125 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
10126 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
10127 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
10128 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
10129 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
10130 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
10131 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
10132 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
10133 training is anyway very important</p>
10134
10135 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
10136 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
10137 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
10138 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
10139 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
10140
10141 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10142 project?</strong></p>
10143
10144 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
10145 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
10146 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
10147 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
10148 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
10149 hole.</p>
10150
10151 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10152 Edu?</strong></p>
10153
10154 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
10155 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
10156 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
10157 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
10158 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
10159 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
10160 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
10161 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
10162 hassle.</p>
10163
10164 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10165 Edu?</strong></p>
10166
10167 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
10168 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
10169 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
10170 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
10171 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
10172 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
10173 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
10174 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
10175
10176 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10177
10178 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
10179 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
10180 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
10181 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
10182 has the same...</p>
10183
10184 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
10185 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
10186 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
10187 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
10188
10189 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10190 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10191
10192 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
10193 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
10194 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
10195
10196 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
10197 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
10198 don't.</p>
10199
10200 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
10201 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
10202 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
10203 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
10204 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
10205 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
10206 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
10207
10208       </div>
10209       <div class="tags">
10210
10211
10212         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10213
10214
10215       </div>
10216     </div>
10217     <div class="padding"></div>
10218
10219     <div class="entry">
10220       <div class="title">
10221         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
10222       </div>
10223       <div class="date">
10224         15th September 2012
10225       </div>
10226       <div class="body">
10227         <p>After the
10228 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
10229 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
10230 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
10231 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
10232 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
10233 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
10234 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
10235 was
10236 <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
10237 formal working group should be formed.</p>
10238
10239 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
10240 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
10241 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
10242 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
10243 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
10244 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
10245 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
10246 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
10247
10248 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
10249 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
10250 IETF.</p>
10251
10252       </div>
10253       <div class="tags">
10254
10255
10256         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>.
10257
10258
10259       </div>
10260     </div>
10261     <div class="padding"></div>
10262
10263     <div class="entry">
10264       <div class="title">
10265         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
10266       </div>
10267       <div class="date">
10268         12th September 2012
10269       </div>
10270       <div class="body">
10271         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
10272 publication of of
10273 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
10274 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
10275 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
10276 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
10277 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
10278 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
10279 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
10280 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
10281 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
10282 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
10283
10284 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
10285 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
10286 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
10287 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
10288
10289 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
10290 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
10291
10292       </div>
10293       <div class="tags">
10294
10295
10296         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>.
10297
10298
10299       </div>
10300     </div>
10301     <div class="padding"></div>
10302
10303     <div class="entry">
10304       <div class="title">
10305         <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>
10306       </div>
10307       <div class="date">
10308          7th September 2012
10309       </div>
10310       <div class="body">
10311         <p>As I
10312 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
10313 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
10314 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
10315 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
10316 repository for the project</a>.</p>
10317
10318 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
10319 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
10320 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
10321 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
10322
10323 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
10324 PostScript formats at
10325 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
10326 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
10327
10328       </div>
10329       <div class="tags">
10330
10331
10332         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>.
10333
10334
10335       </div>
10336     </div>
10337     <div class="padding"></div>
10338
10339     <div class="entry">
10340       <div class="title">
10341         <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>
10342       </div>
10343       <div class="date">
10344         23rd August 2012
10345       </div>
10346       <div class="body">
10347         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
10348 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
10349 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
10350 revisit the great site
10351 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
10352 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
10353 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
10354
10355       </div>
10356       <div class="tags">
10357
10358
10359         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>.
10360
10361
10362       </div>
10363     </div>
10364     <div class="padding"></div>
10365
10366     <div class="entry">
10367       <div class="title">
10368         <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>
10369       </div>
10370       <div class="date">
10371         17th August 2012
10372       </div>
10373       <div class="body">
10374         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
10375 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
10376 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
10377 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
10378 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
10379 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
10380 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
10381 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
10382 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
10383 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
10384 summer I
10385 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
10386 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
10387 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
10388
10389 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
10390 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
10391 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
10392 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
10393 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
10394 progress:</p>
10395
10396 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
10397
10398 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
10399 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
10400 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
10401 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
10402 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
10403 english version of the docbook source.</p>
10404
10405 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
10406 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
10407 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
10408 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
10409 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
10410 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
10411 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
10412 project files currently available from <a
10413 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
10414
10415 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
10416 the updated
10417 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
10418 and
10419 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
10420 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
10421 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
10422 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
10423
10424       </div>
10425       <div class="tags">
10426
10427
10428         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>.
10429
10430
10431       </div>
10432     </div>
10433     <div class="padding"></div>
10434
10435     <div class="entry">
10436       <div class="title">
10437         <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>
10438       </div>
10439       <div class="date">
10440         10th August 2012
10441       </div>
10442       <div class="body">
10443         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
10444 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
10445 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
10446 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
10447 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
10448 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
10449 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
10450 case for the language
10451 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
10452 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
10453
10454 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
10455 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
10456 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
10457 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
10458 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
10459
10460 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
10461 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
10462 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
10463 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
10464 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
10465 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
10466 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
10467 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
10468 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
10469 alias for 'nb'.</p>
10470
10471 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
10472 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
10473 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
10474 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
10475 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
10476 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
10477 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
10478 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
10479 at the same time. :(</p>
10480
10481 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
10482 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
10483 processors. :(</p>
10484
10485 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
10486
10487       </div>
10488       <div class="tags">
10489
10490
10491         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>.
10492
10493
10494       </div>
10495     </div>
10496     <div class="padding"></div>
10497
10498     <div class="entry">
10499       <div class="title">
10500         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
10501       </div>
10502       <div class="date">
10503         31st July 2012
10504       </div>
10505       <div class="body">
10506         <p>I tried to send this text to the
10507 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
10508 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
10509 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
10510 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
10511 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
10512 out.</p>
10513
10514 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
10515 learning curve at the moment.</p>
10516
10517 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
10518 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
10519 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
10520 available from
10521 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
10522 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
10523 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
10524 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
10525 Squeeze.</p>
10526
10527 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
10528 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
10529 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
10530 problems.</p>
10531
10532 <ul>
10533
10534 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
10535    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
10536    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
10537    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
10538    index references spanning several pages (See
10539    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
10540    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
10541    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
10542
10543 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
10544    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
10545    #683163</a>).</li>
10546
10547 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
10548    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
10549    footnote and text body, see
10550    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
10551    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
10552    refs listed are not right).</li>
10553
10554 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
10555
10556 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
10557    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
10558
10559 </ul>
10560
10561 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
10562 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
10563 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
10564
10565 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
10566
10567       </div>
10568       <div class="tags">
10569
10570
10571         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>.
10572
10573
10574       </div>
10575     </div>
10576     <div class="padding"></div>
10577
10578     <div class="entry">
10579       <div class="title">
10580         <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>
10581       </div>
10582       <div class="date">
10583         21st July 2012
10584       </div>
10585       <div class="body">
10586         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
10587 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
10588 norwegian version</a> of the book
10589 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
10590 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
10591 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
10592 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
10593 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
10594
10595 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
10596 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
10597 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
10598 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
10599 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
10600 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
10601 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
10602 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
10603 print. :)</p>
10604
10605 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
10606 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
10607 language.</p>
10608
10609       </div>
10610       <div class="tags">
10611
10612
10613         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>.
10614
10615
10616       </div>
10617     </div>
10618     <div class="padding"></div>
10619
10620     <div class="entry">
10621       <div class="title">
10622         <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>
10623       </div>
10624       <div class="date">
10625         16th July 2012
10626       </div>
10627       <div class="body">
10628         <p>I am currently working on a
10629 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
10630 to translate</a> the book
10631 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
10632 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
10633 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
10634 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
10635 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
10636 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
10637 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
10638
10639 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
10640 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
10641 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
10642 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
10643 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
10644 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
10645 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
10646 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
10647 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
10648
10649       </div>
10650       <div class="tags">
10651
10652
10653         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>.
10654
10655
10656       </div>
10657     </div>
10658     <div class="padding"></div>
10659
10660     <div class="entry">
10661       <div class="title">
10662         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
10663       </div>
10664       <div class="date">
10665          9th July 2012
10666       </div>
10667       <div class="body">
10668         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
10669 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
10670 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
10671 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
10672 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
10673 to adjust and scale the just released
10674 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
10675 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
10676 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
10677
10678 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10679
10680 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
10681 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
10682 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
10683 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
10684 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
10685 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
10686 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
10687 perspective when working with IT.</p>
10688
10689 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10690 project?</strong></p>
10691
10692 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
10693 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
10694 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
10695 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
10696 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
10697 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
10698
10699 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10700 Edu?</strong></p>
10701
10702 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
10703 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
10704 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
10705 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
10706 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
10707 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
10708 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
10709 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
10710 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
10711 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
10712 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
10713 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
10714 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
10715 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
10716 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
10717 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
10718 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
10719 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
10720 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
10721 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
10722 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
10723 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
10724 quicker to update.
10725
10726 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10727 Edu?</strong></p>
10728
10729 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
10730 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
10731 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
10732 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
10733 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
10734 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
10735
10736 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
10737 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
10738 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
10739 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
10740 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
10741 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
10742 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
10743 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
10744 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
10745 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
10746 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
10747 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
10748 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
10749 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
10750 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
10751
10752 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
10753 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
10754 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
10755 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
10756 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
10757 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
10758 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
10759 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
10760
10761 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
10762 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
10763 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
10764 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
10765 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
10766 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
10767 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
10768 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
10769 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
10770 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
10771 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
10772 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
10773 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
10774 sound file.</p>
10775
10776 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
10777 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
10778 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
10779 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
10780 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
10781 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
10782 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
10783 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
10784 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
10785
10786 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10787
10788 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
10789 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
10790 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
10791 )</p>
10792
10793 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10794 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10795
10796 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
10797 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
10798 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
10799 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
10800 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
10801 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
10802 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
10803 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
10804 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
10805 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
10806 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
10807 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
10808 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
10809 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
10810 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
10811
10812 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
10813 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
10814 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
10815 management with Airtime</a>,
10816 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
10817 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
10818 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
10819 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
10820 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
10821
10822       </div>
10823       <div class="tags">
10824
10825
10826         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10827
10828
10829       </div>
10830     </div>
10831     <div class="padding"></div>
10832
10833     <div class="entry">
10834       <div class="title">
10835         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
10836       </div>
10837       <div class="date">
10838          8th July 2012
10839       </div>
10840       <div class="body">
10841         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
10842 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
10843 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
10844 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
10845 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
10846 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
10847 Steinberg in his blog post
10848 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
10849 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
10850 spending of your tax money.</p>
10851
10852 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
10853 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
10854 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
10855 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
10856 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
10857 purchases.</p>
10858
10859       </div>
10860       <div class="tags">
10861
10862
10863         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10864
10865
10866       </div>
10867     </div>
10868     <div class="padding"></div>
10869
10870     <div class="entry">
10871       <div class="title">
10872         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
10873       </div>
10874       <div class="date">
10875          7th July 2012
10876       </div>
10877       <div class="body">
10878         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
10879 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
10880 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
10881 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
10882 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
10883 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
10884 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
10885 receive.  The software is
10886
10887 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
10888 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
10889 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
10890 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
10891 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
10892 Windows</a>.</p>
10893
10894 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
10895 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
10896
10897 <p><ul>
10898
10899   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
10900     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
10901
10902   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
10903     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
10904     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
10905     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
10906     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
10907     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
10908     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
10909     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
10910     </li>
10911
10912   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
10913     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
10914
10915   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
10916     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
10917
10918   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
10919     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
10920
10921   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
10922
10923   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
10924     formats </li>
10925
10926   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
10927     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
10928     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
10929     (as separate sets)</li>
10930
10931   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
10932     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
10933     percentage)</li>
10934
10935   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
10936     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
10937     memory):
10938     <ul>
10939       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
10940       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
10941       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
10942       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
10943       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
10944       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
10945       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
10946       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
10947       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
10948       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
10949           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
10950           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
10951           activity)</li>
10952       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
10953       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
10954     </ul></li>
10955
10956   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
10957     <ul>
10958       <li>Break periods</li>
10959       <li>For teacher(s):
10960         <ul>
10961           <li>Not available periods</li>
10962           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
10963           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
10964           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
10965           <li>Min hours daily</li>
10966           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
10967
10968           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
10969             days per week</li>
10970         </ul></li>
10971       <li>For students (sets):
10972         <ul>
10973           <li>Not available periods</li>
10974           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
10975           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
10976           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
10977           <li>Min hours daily</li>
10978           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
10979
10980           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
10981             days per week</li>
10982         </ul></li>
10983       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
10984         <ul>
10985           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
10986           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
10987           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
10988           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
10989           <li>End(s) students day</li>
10990           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
10991           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
10992             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
10993           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
10994           <li>Not overlapping</li>
10995           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
10996           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
10997         </ul></li>
10998     </ul></li>
10999
11000   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
11001     <ul>
11002       <li>Room not available periods</li>
11003       <li>For teacher(s):
11004         <ul>
11005           <li>Home room(s)</li>
11006           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
11007           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
11008         </ul>
11009       </li>
11010
11011       <li>For students (sets):
11012         <ul>
11013           <li>Home room(s)</li>
11014           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
11015           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
11016         </ul>
11017       </li>
11018       <li>Preferred room(s):
11019         <ul>
11020           <li>For a subject</li>
11021           <li>For an activity tag</li>
11022           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
11023           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
11024         </ul>
11025       </li>
11026
11027       <li>For a set of activities:
11028         <ul>
11029           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
11030         </ul>
11031       </li>
11032     </ul>
11033   </li>
11034 </ul></p>
11035
11036 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
11037 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
11038 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
11039 manually, check it out.
11040
11041 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
11042 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
11043 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
11044 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
11045 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
11046 section</a>.</p>
11047
11048       </div>
11049       <div class="tags">
11050
11051
11052         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11053
11054
11055       </div>
11056     </div>
11057     <div class="padding"></div>
11058
11059     <div class="entry">
11060       <div class="title">
11061         <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>
11062       </div>
11063       <div class="date">
11064          3rd July 2012
11065       </div>
11066       <div class="body">
11067         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
11068 project (Norwegian version of
11069 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
11070 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
11071 a problem with the municipalities using
11072 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
11073 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
11074 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
11075 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
11076 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
11077 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
11078 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
11079 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
11080 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
11081 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
11082 the From: header.</p>
11083
11084 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
11085 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
11086 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
11087 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
11088 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
11089 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
11090 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
11091 behaviour.</p>
11092
11093 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
11094 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
11095 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
11096 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
11097 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
11098 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
11099 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
11100
11101       </div>
11102       <div class="tags">
11103
11104
11105         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>.
11106
11107
11108       </div>
11109     </div>
11110     <div class="padding"></div>
11111
11112     <div class="entry">
11113       <div class="title">
11114         <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>
11115       </div>
11116       <div class="date">
11117         26th June 2012
11118       </div>
11119       <div class="body">
11120         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
11121 another interview with the people behind
11122 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
11123 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
11124 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
11125 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
11126 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
11127 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
11128 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
11129
11130 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11131
11132 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
11133 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
11134 ICT in schools</p>
11135
11136 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11137 project?</strong></p>
11138
11139 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
11140 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
11141 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
11142 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
11143
11144 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11145 Edu?</strong></p>
11146
11147 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
11148 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
11149 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
11150 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
11151
11152 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11153 Edu?</strong></p>
11154
11155 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
11156 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
11157 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
11158 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
11159 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
11160 technologies in school.</p>
11161
11162 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11163
11164 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
11165 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
11166 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
11167
11168 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
11169 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
11170
11171 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
11172 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
11173 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
11174 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
11175
11176 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
11177 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
11178 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
11179
11180 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
11181 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
11182 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
11183 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
11184 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
11185 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
11186 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
11187 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
11188 working there.</p>
11189
11190       </div>
11191       <div class="tags">
11192
11193
11194         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
11195
11196
11197       </div>
11198     </div>
11199     <div class="padding"></div>
11200
11201     <div class="entry">
11202       <div class="title">
11203         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
11204       </div>
11205       <div class="date">
11206         24th June 2012
11207       </div>
11208       <div class="body">
11209         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
11210 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
11211 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
11212 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
11213 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
11214 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
11215 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
11216 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
11217 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
11218 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
11219 missing in my book.</p>
11220
11221 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
11222 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
11223 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
11224 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
11225 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
11226 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
11227 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
11228
11229       </div>
11230       <div class="tags">
11231
11232
11233         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>.
11234
11235
11236       </div>
11237     </div>
11238     <div class="padding"></div>
11239
11240     <div class="entry">
11241       <div class="title">
11242         <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>
11243       </div>
11244       <div class="date">
11245         11th June 2012
11246       </div>
11247       <div class="body">
11248         <p>During my work on
11249 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
11250 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
11251 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
11252 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
11253 explanation.</p>
11254
11255 <p><ul>
11256
11257 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
11258 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
11259 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
11260 system depend on tasksel tasks in
11261 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
11262 installation.</li>
11263
11264 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
11265 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
11266 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
11267 at least try to enable it for these services:
11268 <ul>
11269
11270   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
11271     quotas.</li>
11272   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
11273   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
11274   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
11275   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
11276   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
11277
11278 </ul></li>
11279
11280 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
11281 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
11282 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
11283 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
11284
11285 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
11286 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
11287 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
11288
11289 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
11290 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
11291 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
11292 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
11293 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
11294 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
11295
11296 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
11297 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
11298 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
11299 in Wheezy.
11300
11301 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
11302 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
11303 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
11304
11305 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
11306 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
11307 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
11308 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
11309
11310 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
11311 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
11312 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
11313 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
11314
11315 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
11316 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
11317 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
11318
11319 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
11320 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
11321 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
11322
11323 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
11324 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
11325 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
11326 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
11327 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
11328
11329 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
11330 <ul>
11331
11332 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
11333 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
11334 <li>and probably more?</li>
11335 </ul></li>
11336
11337 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
11338 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
11339 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
11340 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
11341 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
11342 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
11343 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
11344 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
11345
11346
11347 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
11348 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
11349 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
11350 use.</li>
11351
11352 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
11353 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
11354 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
11355 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
11356 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
11357
11358 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
11359 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
11360 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
11361 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
11362 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
11363 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
11364
11365 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
11366 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
11367 There are at least three implementations,
11368 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
11369 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
11370 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
11371 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
11372 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
11373 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
11374 given room.</li>
11375
11376 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
11377 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
11378 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
11379 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
11380 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
11381 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
11382 investigated.</li>
11383
11384 </ul></p>
11385
11386 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
11387 version.</p>
11388
11389       </div>
11390       <div class="tags">
11391
11392
11393         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11394
11395
11396       </div>
11397     </div>
11398     <div class="padding"></div>
11399
11400     <div class="entry">
11401       <div class="title">
11402         <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>
11403       </div>
11404       <div class="date">
11405          9th June 2012
11406       </div>
11407       <div class="body">
11408         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
11409 <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
11410 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
11411 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
11412 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
11413 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
11414 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
11415 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
11416 be willing to pay for.</p>
11417
11418 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
11419 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
11420 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
11421 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
11422 Orwell</a>.</p>
11423
11424       </div>
11425       <div class="tags">
11426
11427
11428         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>.
11429
11430
11431       </div>
11432     </div>
11433     <div class="padding"></div>
11434
11435     <div class="entry">
11436       <div class="title">
11437         <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>
11438       </div>
11439       <div class="date">
11440          6th June 2012
11441       </div>
11442       <div class="body">
11443         <p>A few days ago
11444 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
11445 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
11446 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
11447 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
11448 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
11449 code for HP, Dell and IBM
11450 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
11451 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
11452 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
11453 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
11454 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
11455
11456 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
11457 output:
11458
11459 <blockquote><pre>
11460 % 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>
11461 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": ""})
11462 %
11463 </pre></blockquote>
11464
11465 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
11466 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
11467 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
11468
11469       </div>
11470       <div class="tags">
11471
11472
11473         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>.
11474
11475
11476       </div>
11477     </div>
11478     <div class="padding"></div>
11479
11480     <div class="entry">
11481       <div class="title">
11482         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
11483       </div>
11484       <div class="date">
11485          2nd June 2012
11486       </div>
11487       <div class="body">
11488         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
11489 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
11490 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
11491 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
11492 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
11493 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
11494
11495 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11496
11497 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
11498 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
11499 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
11500 by Angela).</p>
11501
11502 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
11503 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
11504 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
11505 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
11506 becoming an osteopath.</p>
11507
11508 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
11509 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
11510 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
11511 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
11512 skills with communication skills.</p>
11513
11514 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11515 project?</strong></p>
11516
11517 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
11518 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
11519 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
11520 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
11521 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
11522
11523 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
11524 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
11525 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
11526 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
11527 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
11528 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
11529 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
11530 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
11531 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
11532
11533 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
11534 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
11535 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
11536
11537 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
11538
11539 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
11540 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
11541 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
11542 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
11543 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
11544 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
11545 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
11546 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
11547 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
11548 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
11549 point.</p>
11550
11551 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
11552 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
11553 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
11554 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
11555 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
11556 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
11557
11558 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
11559 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
11560 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
11561 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
11562 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
11563 spare time.</p>
11564
11565 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
11566 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
11567 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
11568 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
11569 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
11570
11571 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
11572 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
11573 avoidance do exist.</p>
11574
11575 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
11576 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
11577 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
11578 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
11579 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
11580 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
11581 and probably a gain for all.</p>
11582
11583 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11584 Edu?</strong></p>
11585
11586 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
11587 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
11588 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
11589 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
11590 project communication, honest communication within the group of
11591 developers, etc.</p>
11592
11593 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11594 Edu?</strong></p>
11595
11596 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
11597
11598 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
11599 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
11600 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
11601 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
11602 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
11603 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
11604 contribute).</p>
11605
11606 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
11607 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
11608 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
11609 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
11610 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
11611 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
11612 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
11613 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
11614 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
11615 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
11616
11617 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11618
11619 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
11620
11621 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
11622 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
11623 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
11624
11625 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
11626 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
11627 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
11628 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
11629
11630 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
11631 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
11632 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
11633 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
11634 whiteboard.</p>
11635
11636 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
11637
11638 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
11639 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
11640
11641 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
11642 enrol people.</p>
11643
11644       </div>
11645       <div class="tags">
11646
11647
11648         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
11649
11650
11651       </div>
11652     </div>
11653     <div class="padding"></div>
11654
11655     <div class="entry">
11656       <div class="title">
11657         <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>
11658       </div>
11659       <div class="date">
11660          1st June 2012
11661       </div>
11662       <div class="body">
11663         <p>A few years ago I wrote
11664 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
11665 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
11666 I have learned from colleges here at the
11667 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
11668 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
11669 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
11670 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
11671 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
11672
11673 <p><pre>
11674 use strict;
11675 use warnings;
11676 use SOAP::Lite;
11677 use Data::Dumper;
11678 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
11679 my $App = 'test';
11680 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
11681 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
11682 my $s = SOAP::Lite
11683     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
11684     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
11685     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
11686     ;
11687 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
11688     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
11689     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
11690     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
11691 );
11692 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
11693 </pre></p>
11694
11695 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
11696
11697 <p><pre>
11698 $VAR1 = {
11699           'Asset' => {
11700                      'Entitlements' => {
11701                                        'EntitlementData' => [
11702                                                             {
11703                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
11704                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
11705                                                               'Provider' => '',
11706                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
11707                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
11708                                                             },
11709                                                             {
11710                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
11711                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
11712                                                               'Provider' => '',
11713                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
11714                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
11715                                                             },
11716                                                             {
11717                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
11718                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
11719                                                               'Provider' => '',
11720                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
11721                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
11722                                                             }
11723                                                           ]
11724                                      },
11725                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
11726                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
11727                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
11728                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
11729                                           'Buid' => '2323',
11730                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
11731                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
11732                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
11733                                         }
11734                    }
11735         };
11736 </pre></p>
11737
11738 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
11739 service outside the
11740 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
11741 documentation</a>, and according to
11742 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
11743 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
11744 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
11745
11746 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
11747 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
11748
11749       </div>
11750       <div class="tags">
11751
11752
11753         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>.
11754
11755
11756       </div>
11757     </div>
11758     <div class="padding"></div>
11759
11760     <div class="entry">
11761       <div class="title">
11762         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
11763       </div>
11764       <div class="date">
11765         31st May 2012
11766       </div>
11767       <div class="body">
11768         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
11769 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
11770 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
11771 running Debian Squeeze, where
11772 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
11773 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
11774 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
11775 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
11776 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
11777 another day.</p>
11778
11779 <p>After calibration, I get a
11780 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
11781 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
11782 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
11783 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
11784 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
11785 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
11786 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
11787 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
11788 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
11789 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
11790 and a simple</p>
11791
11792 <p><pre>
11793 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
11794 </pre></p>
11795
11796 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
11797 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
11798 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
11799 enough for now.</p>
11800
11801       </div>
11802       <div class="tags">
11803
11804
11805         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11806
11807
11808       </div>
11809     </div>
11810     <div class="padding"></div>
11811
11812     <div class="entry">
11813       <div class="title">
11814         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
11815       </div>
11816       <div class="date">
11817         27th May 2012
11818       </div>
11819       <div class="body">
11820         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
11821 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
11822 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
11823 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
11824 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
11825 since then, helping to make sure the
11826 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
11827 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
11828
11829 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11830
11831 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
11832 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
11833 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
11834 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
11835 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
11836 our computer network.</p>
11837
11838 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
11839 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
11840 (4 months).</p>
11841
11842 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11843 project?</strong></p>
11844
11845 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
11846 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
11847 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
11848 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
11849 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
11850 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
11851 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
11852 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
11853 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
11854 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
11855 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
11856 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
11857 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
11858 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
11859
11860 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11861 Edu?</strong></p>
11862
11863 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
11864 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
11865 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
11866 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
11867 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
11868 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
11869 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
11870 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
11871
11872 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11873 Edu?</strong></p>
11874
11875 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
11876 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
11877 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
11878 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
11879 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
11880 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
11881 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
11882 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
11883 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
11884 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
11885 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
11886 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
11887
11888 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11889
11890 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
11891 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
11892 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
11893
11894 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
11895 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
11896
11897 <p><ol>
11898
11899 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
11900 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
11901 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
11902 developing.</li>
11903
11904 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
11905 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
11906 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
11907 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
11908 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
11909
11910 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
11911 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
11912 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
11913
11914 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
11915 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
11916 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
11917 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
11918
11919 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
11920 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
11921 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
11922
11923 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
11924
11925 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
11926 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
11927 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
11928 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
11929
11930 </ol></p>
11931
11932       </div>
11933       <div class="tags">
11934
11935
11936         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
11937
11938
11939       </div>
11940     </div>
11941     <div class="padding"></div>
11942
11943     <div class="entry">
11944       <div class="title">
11945         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
11946       </div>
11947       <div class="date">
11948         26th May 2012
11949       </div>
11950       <div class="body">
11951         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
11952 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
11953 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
11954 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
11955 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
11956
11957 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
11958 <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>
11959 comment:</p>
11960
11961 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
11962 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
11963 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
11964 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
11965 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
11966 </blockquote></p>
11967
11968 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
11969 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
11970 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
11971 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
11972 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
11973 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
11974 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
11975 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
11976 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
11977 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
11978 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
11979 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
11980 of wasted effort.</p>
11981
11982 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
11983 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
11984 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
11985
11986 <p>See
11987 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
11988 and
11989 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
11990 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
11991 </blockquote></p>
11992
11993       </div>
11994       <div class="tags">
11995
11996
11997         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>.
11998
11999
12000       </div>
12001     </div>
12002     <div class="padding"></div>
12003
12004     <div class="entry">
12005       <div class="title">
12006         <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>
12007       </div>
12008       <div class="date">
12009         18th May 2012
12010       </div>
12011       <div class="body">
12012         <p>In january, I
12013 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
12014 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
12015 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
12016 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
12017 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
12018 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
12019 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
12020 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
12021 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
12022 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
12023
12024 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
12025 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
12026 drivers. :)</p>
12027
12028       </div>
12029       <div class="tags">
12030
12031
12032         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12033
12034
12035       </div>
12036     </div>
12037     <div class="padding"></div>
12038
12039     <div class="entry">
12040       <div class="title">
12041         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
12042       </div>
12043       <div class="date">
12044         13th May 2012
12045       </div>
12046       <div class="body">
12047         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
12048 publish another interview with the people behind
12049 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
12050 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
12051 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
12052 details get right before release.
12053
12054 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12055
12056 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
12057 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
12058 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
12059 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
12060 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
12061 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
12062 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
12063 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
12064
12065 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
12066 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
12067 home since 2006.</p>
12068
12069 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
12070 project?</strong></p>
12071
12072 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
12073 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
12074 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
12075 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
12076 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
12077 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
12078
12079 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
12080 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
12081 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
12082 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
12083 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
12084 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
12085 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
12086 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
12087 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
12088 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
12089 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
12090 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
12091 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
12092 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
12093 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
12094 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
12095
12096 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12097 Edu?</strong></p>
12098
12099 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
12100 for me as today.</p>
12101
12102 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
12103
12104 <p><ul>
12105
12106 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
12107 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
12108
12109 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
12110 cost.</li>
12111
12112 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
12113 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
12114 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
12115 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
12116 server</li>
12117
12118 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
12119 school.</li>
12120
12121 </ul></p>
12122
12123 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
12124 came up in this way:</p>
12125
12126 <p><ul>
12127
12128 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
12129 now.</li>
12130
12131 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
12132 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
12133 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
12134
12135 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
12136 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
12137 interfaces used in the past.</li>
12138
12139 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
12140 different needs.</li>
12141
12142 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
12143
12144 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
12145 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
12146 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
12147
12148 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
12149 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
12150
12151 </ul></p>
12152
12153 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12154 Edu?</strong></p>
12155
12156 <p><ul>
12157
12158 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
12159 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
12160 whole municipality areas.</li>
12161
12162 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
12163 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
12164 politicians.</li>
12165
12166 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
12167
12168 </ul></p>
12169
12170 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12171
12172 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
12173 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
12174 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
12175 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
12176 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
12177 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
12178
12179 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
12180 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
12181 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
12182 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
12183 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
12184
12185 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12186 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12187
12188 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
12189 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
12190 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
12191
12192       </div>
12193       <div class="tags">
12194
12195
12196         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12197
12198
12199       </div>
12200     </div>
12201     <div class="padding"></div>
12202
12203     <div class="entry">
12204       <div class="title">
12205         <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>
12206       </div>
12207       <div class="date">
12208         30th April 2012
12209       </div>
12210       <div class="body">
12211         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
12212 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
12213
12214 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
12215 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
12216 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
12217 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
12218 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
12219 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
12220 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
12221 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
12222 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
12223 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
12224 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
12225 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
12226 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
12227 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
12228 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
12229 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
12230
12231 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
12232 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
12233 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
12234 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
12235 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
12236 finally found a Danish supplier
12237 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
12238 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
12239 days ago.</p>
12240
12241 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
12242 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
12243 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
12244 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
12245 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
12246 toys.</p>
12247
12248       </div>
12249       <div class="tags">
12250
12251
12252         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12253
12254
12255       </div>
12256     </div>
12257     <div class="padding"></div>
12258
12259     <div class="entry">
12260       <div class="title">
12261         <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>
12262       </div>
12263       <div class="date">
12264         26th April 2012
12265       </div>
12266       <div class="body">
12267         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
12268 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
12269 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
12270 that the video editor application included with
12271 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
12272 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
12273 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
12274
12275 <p><blockquote>
12276 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
12277 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
12278 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
12279 </blockquote></p>
12280
12281 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
12282
12283 <p><blockquote>
12284 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
12285 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
12286 </blockquote></p>
12287
12288 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
12289 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
12290 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
12291 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
12292 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
12293 video.  AMR is
12294 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
12295 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
12296 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
12297 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
12298 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
12299 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
12300 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
12301
12302 <p>I know why I prefer
12303 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
12304 standards</a> also for video.</p>
12305
12306       </div>
12307       <div class="tags">
12308
12309
12310         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>.
12311
12312
12313       </div>
12314     </div>
12315     <div class="padding"></div>
12316
12317     <div class="entry">
12318       <div class="title">
12319         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
12320       </div>
12321       <div class="date">
12322         19th April 2012
12323       </div>
12324       <div class="body">
12325         <p>Here in Norway, the
12326 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
12327 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
12328 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
12329 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
12330 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
12331 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
12332 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
12333 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
12334 on the same level.</p>
12335
12336 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
12337 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
12338 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
12339 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
12340 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
12341 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
12342 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
12343 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
12344 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
12345 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
12346 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
12347 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
12348 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
12349 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
12350 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
12351 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
12352 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
12353 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
12354
12355 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
12356 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
12357 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
12358 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
12359 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
12360 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
12361 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
12362 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
12363
12364 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
12365 from Simon Phipps
12366 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
12367 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
12368
12369 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
12370 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
12371 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
12372 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
12373 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
12374 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
12375 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
12376 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
12377 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
12378
12379       </div>
12380       <div class="tags">
12381
12382
12383         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>.
12384
12385
12386       </div>
12387     </div>
12388     <div class="padding"></div>
12389
12390     <div class="entry">
12391       <div class="title">
12392         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
12393       </div>
12394       <div class="date">
12395         15th April 2012
12396       </div>
12397       <div class="body">
12398         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
12399 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
12400 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
12401 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
12402 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
12403 up in the recently released
12404 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
12405 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
12406
12407 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12408
12409 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
12410 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
12411 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
12412 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
12413 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
12414 information technology and science/technology.</p>
12415
12416 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
12417 project?</strong></p>
12418
12419 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
12420 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
12421 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
12422 contributing.</p>
12423
12424 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12425 Edu?</strong></p>
12426
12427 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
12428 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
12429 Debian Project!</p>
12430
12431 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12432 Edu?</strong></p>
12433
12434 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
12435 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
12436 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
12437 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
12438 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
12439 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
12440 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
12441
12442 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
12443 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
12444
12445 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12446
12447 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
12448 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
12449 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
12450 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
12451
12452 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12453 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12454
12455 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
12456 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
12457 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
12458 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
12459 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
12460 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
12461 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
12462
12463 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
12464 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
12465 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
12466 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
12467 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
12468 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
12469 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
12470 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
12471
12472       </div>
12473       <div class="tags">
12474
12475
12476         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12477
12478
12479       </div>
12480     </div>
12481     <div class="padding"></div>
12482
12483     <div class="entry">
12484       <div class="title">
12485         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
12486       </div>
12487       <div class="date">
12488          8th April 2012
12489       </div>
12490       <div class="body">
12491         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
12492 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
12493 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
12494 contributor to the
12495 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
12496 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
12497
12498 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12499
12500 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
12501 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
12502
12503 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
12504 project?</strong></p>
12505
12506 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
12507 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
12508 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
12509 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
12510 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
12511 "localisation".</p>
12512
12513 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12514 Edu?</strong></p>
12515
12516 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12517 Edu?</strong></p>
12518
12519 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
12520 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
12521 education system.</p>
12522
12523 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
12524 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
12525 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
12526 money on the latest hardware.</p>
12527
12528 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12529
12530 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
12531 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
12532 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
12533
12534 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12535 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12536
12537 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
12538 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
12539 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
12540
12541       </div>
12542       <div class="tags">
12543
12544
12545         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12546
12547
12548       </div>
12549     </div>
12550     <div class="padding"></div>
12551
12552     <div class="entry">
12553       <div class="title">
12554         <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>
12555       </div>
12556       <div class="date">
12557          6th April 2012
12558       </div>
12559       <div class="body">
12560         <p>Recently I have spent time with
12561 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
12562 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
12563 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
12564 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
12565 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
12566 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
12567 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
12568 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
12569
12570 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
12571 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
12572 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
12573 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
12574 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
12575 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
12576 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
12577 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
12578
12579 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
12580 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
12581 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
12582 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
12583 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
12584 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
12585 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
12586 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
12587
12588 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
12589 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
12590 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
12591 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
12592 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
12593 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
12594 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
12595 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
12596 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
12597 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
12598
12599 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
12600 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
12601 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
12602 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
12603
12604 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
12605 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
12606
12607       </div>
12608       <div class="tags">
12609
12610
12611         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12612
12613
12614       </div>
12615     </div>
12616     <div class="padding"></div>
12617
12618     <div class="entry">
12619       <div class="title">
12620         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
12621       </div>
12622       <div class="date">
12623          5th April 2012
12624       </div>
12625       <div class="body">
12626         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
12627 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
12628 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
12629 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
12630 for schools.  Check out his article
12631 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
12632 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
12633
12634       </div>
12635       <div class="tags">
12636
12637
12638         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12639
12640
12641       </div>
12642     </div>
12643     <div class="padding"></div>
12644
12645     <div class="entry">
12646       <div class="title">
12647         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
12648       </div>
12649       <div class="date">
12650          1st April 2012
12651       </div>
12652       <div class="body">
12653         <p>Germany is a core area for the
12654 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
12655 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
12656 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
12657
12658 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12659
12660 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
12661 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
12662 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
12663 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
12664 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
12665 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
12666 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
12667 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
12668
12669 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
12670 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
12671 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
12672 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
12673 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
12674 the end of April this year.</p>
12675
12676 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
12677 project?</strong></p>
12678
12679 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
12680 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
12681 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
12682 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
12683 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
12684 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
12685 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
12686 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
12687 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
12688 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
12689 Skolelinux.</p>
12690
12691 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
12692 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
12693 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
12694 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
12695 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
12696 the admin teachers.</p>
12697
12698 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12699 Edu?</strong></p>
12700
12701 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
12702 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
12703 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
12704
12705 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
12706 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
12707 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
12708 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
12709 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
12710
12711 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12712 Edu?</strong></p>
12713
12714 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
12715
12716 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12717
12718 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
12719 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
12720 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
12721 LibreOffice.</p>
12722
12723 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12724 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12725
12726 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
12727 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
12728 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
12729
12730       </div>
12731       <div class="tags">
12732
12733
12734         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12735
12736
12737       </div>
12738     </div>
12739     <div class="padding"></div>
12740
12741     <div class="entry">
12742       <div class="title">
12743         <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>
12744       </div>
12745       <div class="date">
12746         25th March 2012
12747       </div>
12748       <div class="body">
12749         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
12750
12751 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
12752 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
12753 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
12754 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
12755 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
12756 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
12757 and download as a
12758 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
12759 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
12760
12761 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
12762   <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"' />
12763     <p>Download video as
12764       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
12765 </video></p>
12766
12767       </div>
12768       <div class="tags">
12769
12770
12771         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</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/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
12781       </div>
12782       <div class="date">
12783         19th March 2012
12784       </div>
12785       <div class="body">
12786         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
12787 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
12788 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
12789 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
12790 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
12791
12792 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12793
12794 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
12795 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
12796 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
12797 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
12798 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
12799 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
12800 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
12801 installations.</p>
12802
12803 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
12804 project?</strong></p>
12805
12806 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
12807 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
12808 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
12809 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
12810 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
12811 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
12812 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
12813 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
12814 these things we decided to try it.</p>
12815
12816 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12817 Edu?</strong></p>
12818
12819 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
12820 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
12821 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
12822 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
12823 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
12824 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
12825 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
12826 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
12827
12828 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12829 Edu?</strong></p>
12830
12831 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
12832 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
12833 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
12834 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
12835 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
12836
12837 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12838
12839 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
12840 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
12841 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
12842 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
12843 that counts...)</p>
12844
12845 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12846 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12847
12848 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
12849 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
12850 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
12851 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
12852 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
12853 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
12854 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
12855 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
12856 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
12857 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
12858 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
12859
12860 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
12861 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
12862 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
12863
12864       </div>
12865       <div class="tags">
12866
12867
12868         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12869
12870
12871       </div>
12872     </div>
12873     <div class="padding"></div>
12874
12875     <div class="entry">
12876       <div class="title">
12877         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
12878       </div>
12879       <div class="date">
12880         16th March 2012
12881       </div>
12882       <div class="body">
12883         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
12884 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
12885 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
12886 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
12887
12888 <ol>
12889
12890 <li>The documentation is written in a
12891 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
12892 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
12893 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
12894 docbook XML.</li>
12895
12896 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
12897 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
12898 with the translated text.</li>
12899
12900 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
12901 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
12902 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
12903 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
12904 images.</li>
12905
12906 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
12907 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
12908
12909 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
12910 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
12911
12912 </ol>
12913
12914 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
12915 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
12916 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
12917 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
12918 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
12919
12920 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
12921 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
12922 package</a>.</p>
12923
12924       </div>
12925       <div class="tags">
12926
12927
12928         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12929
12930
12931       </div>
12932     </div>
12933     <div class="padding"></div>
12934
12935     <div class="entry">
12936       <div class="title">
12937         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
12938       </div>
12939       <div class="date">
12940         11th March 2012
12941       </div>
12942       <div class="body">
12943         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
12944 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
12945 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
12946 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
12947 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
12948 you have not done so already.</p>
12949
12950 <p>I plan to present the new version at
12951 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
12952 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
12953 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
12954
12955       </div>
12956       <div class="tags">
12957
12958
12959         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12960
12961
12962       </div>
12963     </div>
12964     <div class="padding"></div>
12965
12966     <div class="entry">
12967       <div class="title">
12968         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
12969       </div>
12970       <div class="date">
12971          9th March 2012
12972       </div>
12973       <div class="body">
12974         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
12975 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
12976 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
12977 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
12978 more international audience.</p>
12979
12980 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
12981 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
12982 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
12983 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
12984 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
12985 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
12986 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
12987
12988
12989 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12990
12991 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
12992 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
12993 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
12994 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
12995 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
12996 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
12997 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
12998 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
12999 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
13000 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
13001 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
13002
13003 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
13004 project?</strong></p>
13005
13006 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
13007 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
13008 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
13009 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
13010 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
13011 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
13012 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
13013 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
13014 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
13015 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
13016 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
13017 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
13018 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
13019
13020 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
13021 Edu?</strong></p>
13022
13023 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
13024 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
13025 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
13026 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
13027 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
13028 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
13029 Japan.</p>
13030
13031 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
13032 Edu?</strong></p>
13033
13034 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
13035 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
13036 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
13037 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
13038 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
13039 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
13040 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
13041 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
13042 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
13043 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
13044 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
13045 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
13046 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
13047 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
13048 help.</p>
13049
13050 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
13051
13052 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
13053 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
13054 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
13055 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
13056 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
13057 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
13058 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
13059 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
13060 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
13061 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
13062 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
13063
13064 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
13065 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
13066
13067 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
13068 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
13069 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
13070 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
13071 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
13072 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
13073 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
13074 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
13075 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
13076 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
13077 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
13078 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
13079
13080       </div>
13081       <div class="tags">
13082
13083
13084         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13085
13086
13087       </div>
13088     </div>
13089     <div class="padding"></div>
13090
13091     <div class="entry">
13092       <div class="title">
13093         <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>
13094       </div>
13095       <div class="date">
13096          7th March 2012
13097       </div>
13098       <div class="body">
13099         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
13100
13101 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
13102 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
13103 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
13104 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
13105 download as a
13106 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
13107 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
13108
13109 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
13110   <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"' />
13111     <p>Download video as
13112       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
13113 </video></p>
13114
13115       </div>
13116       <div class="tags">
13117
13118
13119         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13120
13121
13122       </div>
13123     </div>
13124     <div class="padding"></div>
13125
13126     <div class="entry">
13127       <div class="title">
13128         <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>
13129       </div>
13130       <div class="date">
13131          4th March 2012
13132       </div>
13133       <div class="body">
13134         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
13135 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
13136 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
13137 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
13138 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
13139 need a software solution for your school.</p>
13140
13141       </div>
13142       <div class="tags">
13143
13144
13145         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13146
13147
13148       </div>
13149     </div>
13150     <div class="padding"></div>
13151
13152     <div class="entry">
13153       <div class="title">
13154         <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>
13155       </div>
13156       <div class="date">
13157          3rd March 2012
13158       </div>
13159       <div class="body">
13160         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
13161 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
13162 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
13163 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
13164 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
13165 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
13166 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
13167 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
13168 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
13169 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
13170 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
13171 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
13172 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
13173 year...</p>
13174
13175 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
13176 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
13177 name,
13178 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
13179 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
13180 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
13181 mean). I've been following
13182 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
13183 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
13184 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
13185 Check it out. :)</p>
13186
13187       </div>
13188       <div class="tags">
13189
13190
13191         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13192
13193
13194       </div>
13195     </div>
13196     <div class="padding"></div>
13197
13198     <div class="entry">
13199       <div class="title">
13200         <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>
13201       </div>
13202       <div class="date">
13203         27th February 2012
13204       </div>
13205       <div class="body">
13206         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
13207 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
13208 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
13209 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
13210 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
13211 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
13212 need a software solution for your school.</p>
13213
13214       </div>
13215       <div class="tags">
13216
13217
13218         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13219
13220
13221       </div>
13222     </div>
13223     <div class="padding"></div>
13224
13225     <div class="entry">
13226       <div class="title">
13227         <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>
13228       </div>
13229       <div class="date">
13230         19th February 2012
13231       </div>
13232       <div class="body">
13233         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
13234 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
13235 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
13236 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
13237 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
13238 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
13239 solution for your school.</p>
13240
13241       </div>
13242       <div class="tags">
13243
13244
13245         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13246
13247
13248       </div>
13249     </div>
13250     <div class="padding"></div>
13251
13252     <div class="entry">
13253       <div class="title">
13254         <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>
13255       </div>
13256       <div class="date">
13257         14th February 2012
13258       </div>
13259       <div class="body">
13260         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
13261 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
13262 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
13263 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
13264 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
13265 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
13266 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
13267 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
13268 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
13269
13270 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
13271 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
13272 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
13273 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
13274 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
13275
13276 <blockquote><pre>
13277 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
13278 do
13279     printf "Failed disk $d: "
13280     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
13281 done
13282 </blockquote></pre>
13283
13284 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
13285 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
13286
13287 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
13288
13289 <blockquote><pre>
13290 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
13291 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
13292 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
13293 </blockquote></pre>
13294
13295 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
13296 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
13297 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
13298 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
13299 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
13300 mounted inside my box.</p>
13301
13302 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
13303 Software RAID in the
13304 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
13305 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
13306 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
13307 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
13308 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
13309 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
13310
13311       </div>
13312       <div class="tags">
13313
13314
13315         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>.
13316
13317
13318       </div>
13319     </div>
13320     <div class="padding"></div>
13321
13322     <div class="entry">
13323       <div class="title">
13324         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
13325       </div>
13326       <div class="date">
13327         13th February 2012
13328       </div>
13329       <div class="body">
13330         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
13331 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
13332 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
13333 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
13334 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
13335 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
13336 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
13337 change the global proxy setting by editing
13338 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
13339 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
13340
13341 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
13342 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
13343 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
13344
13345 <blockquote><pre>
13346 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
13347 {
13348    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
13349        isPlainHostName(host) ||
13350        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
13351       return "DIRECT";
13352    else
13353       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
13354 }
13355 </pre></blockquote>
13356
13357 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
13358
13359 <blockquote><pre>
13360 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
13361 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
13362 </pre></blockquote>
13363
13364 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
13365 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
13366 would be used for
13367 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
13368 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
13369 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
13370 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
13371 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
13372 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
13373 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
13374 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
13375 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
13376 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
13377
13378 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
13379 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
13380 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
13381 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
13382 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
13383 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
13384
13385 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
13386 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
13387 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
13388 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
13389 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
13390 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
13391 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
13392 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
13393 the network setup changes.</p>
13394
13395 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
13396 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
13397 draft</a> and a
13398 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
13399 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
13400
13401       </div>
13402       <div class="tags">
13403
13404
13405         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13406
13407
13408       </div>
13409     </div>
13410     <div class="padding"></div>
13411
13412     <div class="entry">
13413       <div class="title">
13414         <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>
13415       </div>
13416       <div class="date">
13417          5th February 2012
13418       </div>
13419       <div class="body">
13420         <p>Since the Lenny version of
13421 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
13422 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
13423 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
13424 in the morning.  This is done using the
13425 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
13426
13427 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
13428 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
13429 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
13430 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
13431 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
13432 the
13433 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
13434 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
13435 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
13436 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
13437 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
13438
13439 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
13440 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
13441 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
13442 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
13443 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
13444 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
13445 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
13446
13447 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
13448 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
13449 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
13450 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
13451 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
13452
13453       </div>
13454       <div class="tags">
13455
13456
13457         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13458
13459
13460       </div>
13461     </div>
13462     <div class="padding"></div>
13463
13464     <div class="entry">
13465       <div class="title">
13466         <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>
13467       </div>
13468       <div class="date">
13469          4th February 2012
13470       </div>
13471       <div class="body">
13472         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
13473 publish the third beta version of
13474 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
13475 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
13476 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
13477 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
13478 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
13479 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
13480 on the project announcement list.</p>
13481
13482 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
13483 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
13484
13485 <ul>
13486
13487 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
13488   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
13489   the installation.</li>
13490
13491 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
13492   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
13493
13494 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
13495   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
13496   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
13497
13498 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
13499   for the local system administrator is created during installation
13500   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
13501   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
13502   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
13503   up to date on the system.</li>
13504
13505 </ul>
13506
13507 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
13508 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
13509 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
13510 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
13511
13512 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
13513 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
13514 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
13515 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
13516 will see you there?</p>
13517
13518       </div>
13519       <div class="tags">
13520
13521
13522         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13523
13524
13525       </div>
13526     </div>
13527     <div class="padding"></div>
13528
13529     <div class="entry">
13530       <div class="title">
13531         <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>
13532       </div>
13533       <div class="date">
13534         27th January 2012
13535       </div>
13536       <div class="body">
13537         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
13538 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
13539 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
13540 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
13541 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
13542 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
13543 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
13544
13545 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
13546 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
13547 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
13548 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
13549 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
13550 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
13551 not taken care of by this.</p>
13552
13553 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
13554 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
13555 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
13556 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
13557 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
13558 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
13559 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
13560 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
13561 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
13562 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
13563 firmware packages.</p>
13564
13565 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
13566 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
13567 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
13568 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
13569 initrd with extra firmware, the
13570 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
13571 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
13572 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
13573
13574 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
13575 network cards working.  For this,
13576 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
13577 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
13578 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
13579
13580 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
13581 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
13582 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
13583
13584 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
13585 try.</p>
13586
13587       </div>
13588       <div class="tags">
13589
13590
13591         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13592
13593
13594       </div>
13595     </div>
13596     <div class="padding"></div>
13597
13598     <div class="entry">
13599       <div class="title">
13600         <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>
13601       </div>
13602       <div class="date">
13603         25th January 2012
13604       </div>
13605       <div class="body">
13606         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
13607 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
13608 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
13609 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
13610 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
13611
13612 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
13613 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
13614 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
13615 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
13616 this is done, log on to the central server and run
13617 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
13618 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
13619 will look similar to this:</p>
13620
13621 <p><blockquote><pre>
13622 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
13623 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
13624 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.
13625
13626 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
13627
13628 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13629 enter password: *******
13630 %
13631 </pre></blockquote></p>
13632
13633 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
13634 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
13635 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
13636 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
13637 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
13638 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
13639 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
13640 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
13641 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
13642 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
13643 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
13644 automatically.</p>
13645
13646 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
13647 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
13648
13649 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
13650 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
13651 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
13652
13653       </div>
13654       <div class="tags">
13655
13656
13657         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13658
13659
13660       </div>
13661     </div>
13662     <div class="padding"></div>
13663
13664     <div class="entry">
13665       <div class="title">
13666         <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>
13667       </div>
13668       <div class="date">
13669         10th January 2012
13670       </div>
13671       <div class="body">
13672         <p>In the Squeeze version of
13673 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
13674 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
13675 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
13676 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
13677 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
13678 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
13679 first time.</p>
13680
13681 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
13682 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
13683 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
13684 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
13685
13686 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
13687 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
13688 new setting.</p>
13689
13690 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
13691 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
13692 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
13693
13694       </div>
13695       <div class="tags">
13696
13697
13698         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13699
13700
13701       </div>
13702     </div>
13703     <div class="padding"></div>
13704
13705     <div class="entry">
13706       <div class="title">
13707         <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>
13708       </div>
13709       <div class="date">
13710          7th January 2012
13711       </div>
13712       <div class="body">
13713         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
13714 the second beta version of
13715 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
13716 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
13717 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
13718 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
13719 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
13720 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
13721 on the project announcement list.</p>
13722
13723       </div>
13724       <div class="tags">
13725
13726
13727         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13728
13729
13730       </div>
13731     </div>
13732     <div class="padding"></div>
13733
13734     <div class="entry">
13735       <div class="title">
13736         <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>
13737       </div>
13738       <div class="date">
13739          3rd January 2012
13740       </div>
13741       <div class="body">
13742         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
13743 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
13744 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
13745 interesting.</p>
13746
13747 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
13748 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
13749 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
13750 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
13751 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
13752 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
13753 wrap up its tasks.</p>
13754
13755 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
13756 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
13757 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
13758 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
13759 because I was typing.</P>
13760
13761 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
13762 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
13763 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
13764 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
13765 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
13766 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
13767 generate entropy.</p>
13768
13769 <p>The fix is in
13770 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
13771 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
13772 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
13773 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
13774
13775       </div>
13776       <div class="tags">
13777
13778
13779         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13780
13781
13782       </div>
13783     </div>
13784     <div class="padding"></div>
13785
13786     <div class="entry">
13787       <div class="title">
13788         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
13789       </div>
13790       <div class="date">
13791         21st November 2011
13792       </div>
13793       <div class="body">
13794         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
13795 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
13796 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
13797 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
13798 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
13799 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
13800 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
13801 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
13802 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
13803 the tools to do so.</p>
13804
13805 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
13806 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
13807 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
13808 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
13809
13810 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
13811 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
13812 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
13813 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
13814 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
13815 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
13816 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
13817 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
13818
13819 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
13820 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
13821 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
13822
13823 <p><pre>
13824 #!/usr/bin/perl
13825 use strict;
13826 use warnings;
13827 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
13828 BEGIN {
13829     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
13830     my %rhelmodules = (
13831         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
13832         );
13833     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
13834         eval "use $module;";
13835         if ($@) {
13836             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
13837             system("yum install -y $pkg");
13838             eval "use $module;";
13839         }
13840     }
13841 }
13842 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
13843
13844 upgrade_dell();
13845
13846 exit 0;
13847
13848 sub run_firmware_script {
13849     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
13850     unless ($script) {
13851         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
13852         exit 1
13853     }
13854     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
13855
13856     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
13857         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
13858     } else {
13859         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
13860     }
13861 }
13862
13863 sub run_firmware_scripts {
13864     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
13865     # Run firmware packages
13866     for my $dir (@dirs) {
13867         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
13868         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
13869         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
13870             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
13871             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
13872         }
13873         closedir $dh;
13874     }
13875 }
13876
13877 sub download {
13878     my $url = shift;
13879     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
13880     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
13881 }
13882
13883 sub upgrade_dell {
13884     my @dirs;
13885     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
13886     chomp $product;
13887
13888     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
13889
13890         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
13891         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
13892
13893         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
13894             CLEANUP => 1
13895             );
13896         chdir($tmpdir);
13897         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
13898         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
13899         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
13900         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
13901         my $fwopts = "-q";
13902         if (@paths) {
13903             for my $url (@paths) {
13904                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
13905             }
13906             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
13907         } else {
13908             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
13909             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
13910         }
13911         chdir('/');
13912     } else {
13913         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
13914         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
13915     }
13916 }
13917
13918 sub fetch_dell_fw {
13919     my $path = shift;
13920     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
13921     download($url);
13922 }
13923
13924 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
13925 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
13926 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
13927 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
13928     my $filename = shift;
13929
13930     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
13931     chomp $product;
13932     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
13933
13934     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
13935
13936     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
13937     my @paths;
13938     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
13939         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
13940         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
13941         my $oscode;
13942         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
13943             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
13944         } else {
13945             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
13946         }
13947         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
13948         {
13949             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
13950         }
13951     }
13952     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
13953         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
13954
13955         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
13956         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
13957
13958         my $cpath = $component->{path};
13959         for my $path (@paths) {
13960             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
13961                 push(@paths, $cpath);
13962             }
13963         }
13964     }
13965     return @paths;
13966 }
13967 </pre>
13968
13969 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
13970 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
13971 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
13972 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
13973 outdated.</p>
13974
13975       </div>
13976       <div class="tags">
13977
13978
13979         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>.
13980
13981
13982       </div>
13983     </div>
13984     <div class="padding"></div>
13985
13986     <div class="entry">
13987       <div class="title">
13988         <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>
13989       </div>
13990       <div class="date">
13991          7th October 2011
13992       </div>
13993       <div class="body">
13994         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
13995 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
13996 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
13997 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
13998 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
13999 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
14000 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
14001 models.</p>
14002
14003 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
14004 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
14005 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
14006 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
14007
14008 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
14009 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
14010 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
14011 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
14012 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
14013 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
14014 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
14015 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
14016 distributed.</p>
14017
14018 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
14019
14020 <ul>
14021
14022 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
14023   other relevant equipment.</li>
14024
14025 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
14026
14027 </ul>
14028
14029 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
14030 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
14031 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
14032 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
14033 books available.</p>
14034
14035 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
14036 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
14037 libraries. :)</p>
14038
14039       </div>
14040       <div class="tags">
14041
14042
14043         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>.
14044
14045
14046       </div>
14047     </div>
14048     <div class="padding"></div>
14049
14050     <div class="entry">
14051       <div class="title">
14052         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
14053       </div>
14054       <div class="date">
14055         17th September 2011
14056       </div>
14057       <div class="body">
14058         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
14059 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
14060 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
14061 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
14062 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
14063 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
14064 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
14065 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
14066
14067 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
14068
14069 <blockquote><pre>
14070 #!/bin/sh
14071 # apt-get install lsdvd
14072 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
14073 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
14074 </pre></blockquote>
14075
14076 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
14077 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
14078 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
14079 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
14080
14081 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
14082 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
14083 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
14084 back as an ISO.
14085
14086 <blockquote><pre>
14087 #!/bin/sh
14088 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
14089 set -e
14090 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
14091 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
14092 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
14093 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
14094 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
14095 </pre></blockquote>
14096
14097 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
14098
14099 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
14100 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
14101 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
14102 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
14103 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
14104
14105 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
14106 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
14107 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
14108 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
14109 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
14110 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
14111
14112       </div>
14113       <div class="tags">
14114
14115
14116         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>.
14117
14118
14119       </div>
14120     </div>
14121     <div class="padding"></div>
14122
14123     <div class="entry">
14124       <div class="title">
14125         <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>
14126       </div>
14127       <div class="date">
14128          4th August 2011
14129       </div>
14130       <div class="body">
14131         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
14132 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
14133 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
14134 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
14135 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
14136 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
14137 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
14138 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
14139 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
14140
14141 <p><blockquote>
14142 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
14143 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
14144 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
14145 </blockquote></p>
14146
14147 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
14148 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
14149 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
14150 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
14151 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
14152 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
14153 hard to explain.</p>
14154
14155 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
14156 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
14157 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
14158 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
14159 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
14160 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
14161 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
14162 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
14163 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
14164 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
14165 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
14166 mode).</p>
14167
14168 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
14169 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
14170 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
14171 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
14172 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
14173 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
14174 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
14175 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
14176 after visiting single user mode.</p>
14177
14178 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
14179 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
14180 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
14181 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
14182 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
14183 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
14184 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
14185 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
14186
14187 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
14188 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
14189 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
14190
14191       </div>
14192       <div class="tags">
14193
14194
14195         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>.
14196
14197
14198       </div>
14199     </div>
14200     <div class="padding"></div>
14201
14202     <div class="entry">
14203       <div class="title">
14204         <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>
14205       </div>
14206       <div class="date">
14207         30th July 2011
14208       </div>
14209       <div class="body">
14210         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
14211 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
14212 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
14213 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
14214 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
14215 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
14216 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
14217 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
14218 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
14219 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
14220 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
14221 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
14222 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
14223
14224 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
14225 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
14226 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
14227 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
14228 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
14229 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
14230 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
14231 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
14232 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
14233
14234 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
14235 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
14236 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
14237 is presented.</p>
14238
14239 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
14240 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
14241 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
14242 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
14243 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
14244 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
14245 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
14246 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
14247 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
14248 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
14249 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
14250 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
14251 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
14252 find time to push this forward.</p>
14253
14254       </div>
14255       <div class="tags">
14256
14257
14258         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>.
14259
14260
14261       </div>
14262     </div>
14263     <div class="padding"></div>
14264
14265     <div class="entry">
14266       <div class="title">
14267         <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>
14268       </div>
14269       <div class="date">
14270         29th July 2011
14271       </div>
14272       <div class="body">
14273         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
14274 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
14275 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
14276 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
14277 issues.</p>
14278
14279 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
14280 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
14281 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
14282
14283 <ol>
14284
14285 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
14286 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
14287 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
14288 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
14289 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
14290 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
14291 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
14292 Debian.</li>
14293
14294 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
14295 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
14296 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
14297 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
14298 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
14299 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
14300 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
14301 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
14302 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
14303 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
14304 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
14305 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
14306 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
14307
14308 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
14309 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
14310 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
14311 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
14312 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
14313 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
14314 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
14315 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
14316 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
14317 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
14318
14319 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
14320 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
14321 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
14322 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
14323 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
14324 latter behaviour.</li>
14325
14326 </ol>
14327
14328 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
14329 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
14330 it do not matter much.</p>
14331
14332 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
14333 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
14334 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
14335
14336       </div>
14337       <div class="tags">
14338
14339
14340         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>.
14341
14342
14343       </div>
14344     </div>
14345     <div class="padding"></div>
14346
14347     <div class="entry">
14348       <div class="title">
14349         <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>
14350       </div>
14351       <div class="date">
14352         26th July 2011
14353       </div>
14354       <div class="body">
14355         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
14356 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
14357 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
14358 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
14359 security support for a few years.</p>
14360
14361 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
14362 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
14363 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
14364 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
14365 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
14366 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
14367 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
14368 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
14369 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
14370 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
14371 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
14372 easier in the future.</p>
14373
14374 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
14375 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
14376 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
14377 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
14378 do not have time for.</p>
14379
14380       </div>
14381       <div class="tags">
14382
14383
14384         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>.
14385
14386
14387       </div>
14388     </div>
14389     <div class="padding"></div>
14390
14391     <div class="entry">
14392       <div class="title">
14393         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
14394       </div>
14395       <div class="date">
14396         20th June 2011
14397       </div>
14398       <div class="body">
14399         <p>Reading
14400 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
14401 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
14402 parts of the
14403 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
14404 and
14405 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
14406 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
14407 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
14408 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
14409
14410       </div>
14411       <div class="tags">
14412
14413
14414         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>.
14415
14416
14417       </div>
14418     </div>
14419     <div class="padding"></div>
14420
14421     <div class="entry">
14422       <div class="title">
14423         <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>
14424       </div>
14425       <div class="date">
14426         30th April 2011
14427       </div>
14428       <div class="body">
14429         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
14430 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
14431 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
14432 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
14433 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
14434 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
14435 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
14436 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
14437 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
14438 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
14439
14440 <p>Where is it?  Visit
14441 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
14442 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
14443 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
14444 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
14445
14446       </div>
14447       <div class="tags">
14448
14449
14450         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>.
14451
14452
14453       </div>
14454     </div>
14455     <div class="padding"></div>
14456
14457     <div class="entry">
14458       <div class="title">
14459         <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>
14460       </div>
14461       <div class="date">
14462         29th April 2011
14463       </div>
14464       <div class="body">
14465         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
14466 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
14467 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
14468 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
14469 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
14470 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
14471 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
14472 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
14473 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
14474 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
14475 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
14476 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
14477 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
14478
14479 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
14480 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
14481 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
14482 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
14483 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
14484 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
14485 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
14486 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
14487 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
14488 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
14489 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
14490 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
14491 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
14492
14493 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
14494 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
14495 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
14496 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
14497 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
14498 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
14499 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
14500 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
14501 it.</p>
14502
14503 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
14504 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
14505 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
14506 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
14507 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
14508 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
14509 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
14510
14511 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
14512 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
14513 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
14514 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
14515 and range= options.</p>
14516
14517 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
14518 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
14519 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
14520 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
14521 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
14522 to best handle this.  I've noticed
14523 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
14524 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
14525 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
14526 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
14527
14528 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
14529 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
14530 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
14531 discussions instead of only
14532 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
14533 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
14534 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
14535 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
14536 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
14537 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
14538
14539       </div>
14540       <div class="tags">
14541
14542
14543         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>.
14544
14545
14546       </div>
14547     </div>
14548     <div class="padding"></div>
14549
14550     <div class="entry">
14551       <div class="title">
14552         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
14553       </div>
14554       <div class="date">
14555          6th April 2011
14556       </div>
14557       <div class="body">
14558         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
14559 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
14560 A few days ago the project
14561 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
14562 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
14563 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
14564 into Gnash.</p>
14565
14566       </div>
14567       <div class="tags">
14568
14569
14570         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>.
14571
14572
14573       </div>
14574     </div>
14575     <div class="padding"></div>
14576
14577     <div class="entry">
14578       <div class="title">
14579         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html">A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</a>
14580       </div>
14581       <div class="date">
14582          3rd April 2011
14583       </div>
14584       <div class="body">
14585         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
14586 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
14587 update in English.</p>
14588
14589 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
14590 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
14591 of the British service
14592 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
14593 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
14594 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
14595 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
14596 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
14597 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
14598 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
14599 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
14600 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
14601 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
14602 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
14603 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
14604 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
14605
14606 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
14607 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
14608 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
14609 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
14610 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
14611 public infrastructure.</p>
14612
14613 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
14614 such service?</p>
14615
14616       </div>
14617       <div class="tags">
14618
14619
14620         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>.
14621
14622
14623       </div>
14624     </div>
14625     <div class="padding"></div>
14626
14627     <div class="entry">
14628       <div class="title">
14629         <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>
14630       </div>
14631       <div class="date">
14632         28th January 2011
14633       </div>
14634       <div class="body">
14635         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
14636 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
14637 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
14638 available on the Internet, and check our locally
14639 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
14640 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
14641 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
14642 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
14643 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
14644 out which security holes were present in our free software
14645 collection.</p>
14646
14647 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
14648 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
14649 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
14650 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
14651 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
14652 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
14653 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
14654 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
14655 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
14656 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
14657 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
14658 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
14659 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
14660 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
14661 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
14662 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
14663
14664 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
14665 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
14666 check out, one could look up
14667 <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
14668 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
14669 The most recent one is
14670 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
14671 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
14672 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
14673
14674 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
14675 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
14676 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
14677 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
14678 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
14679 security issues out.</p>
14680
14681 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
14682 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
14683 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
14684 RHEL is providing
14685 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
14686 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
14687 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
14688
14689 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
14690 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
14691 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
14692 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
14693 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
14694 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
14695 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
14696 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
14697 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
14698 established soon.</p>
14699
14700 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
14701 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
14702 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
14703 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
14704 for their packages.</p>
14705
14706       </div>
14707       <div class="tags">
14708
14709
14710         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>.
14711
14712
14713       </div>
14714     </div>
14715     <div class="padding"></div>
14716
14717     <div class="entry">
14718       <div class="title">
14719         <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>
14720       </div>
14721       <div class="date">
14722         23rd January 2011
14723       </div>
14724       <div class="body">
14725         <p>In the
14726 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
14727 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
14728 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
14729 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
14730 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
14731 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
14732 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
14733 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
14734 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
14735 one of my machines like this:</p>
14736
14737 <pre>
14738 loaded modules:
14739 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
14740 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
14741 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
14742 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
14743 10de:03ec pata_amd
14744 10de:03f6 sata_nv
14745 1022:1103 k8temp
14746 109e:036e bttv
14747 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
14748 11ab:4364 sky2
14749 </pre>
14750
14751 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
14752 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
14753
14754 <pre>
14755 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
14756     echo loaded pci modules:
14757     (
14758         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
14759         for address in * ; do
14760             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
14761                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
14762                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
14763                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
14764                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
14765                     echo "$id $module"
14766                 fi
14767             fi
14768         done
14769     )
14770     echo
14771 fi
14772 </pre>
14773
14774 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
14775 mappings:</p>
14776
14777 <pre>
14778 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
14779     echo loaded usb modules:
14780     (
14781         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
14782         for address in * ; do
14783             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
14784                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
14785                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
14786                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
14787                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
14788                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
14789                         echo "$id $module"
14790                     fi
14791                 fi
14792             fi
14793         done
14794     )
14795     echo
14796 fi
14797 </pre>
14798
14799 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
14800 well.</p>
14801
14802       </div>
14803       <div class="tags">
14804
14805
14806         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>.
14807
14808
14809       </div>
14810     </div>
14811     <div class="padding"></div>
14812
14813     <div class="entry">
14814       <div class="title">
14815         <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>
14816       </div>
14817       <div class="date">
14818         16th January 2011
14819       </div>
14820       <div class="body">
14821         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
14822 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
14823 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
14824 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
14825 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
14826 the Wikipedia article on
14827 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
14828 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
14829 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
14830 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
14831 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
14832 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
14833 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
14834 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
14835 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
14836 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
14837 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
14838 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
14839
14840 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
14841 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
14842 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
14843 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
14844 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
14845 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
14846 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
14847 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
14848 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
14849 from last week</a>.</p>
14850
14851 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
14852 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
14853 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
14854 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
14855 was without royalties and license terms, check out
14856 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
14857 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
14858
14859 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
14860 available from
14861 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
14862 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
14863 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
14864
14865 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
14866 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
14867 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
14868 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
14869
14870       </div>
14871       <div class="tags">
14872
14873
14874         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>.
14875
14876
14877       </div>
14878     </div>
14879     <div class="padding"></div>
14880
14881     <div class="entry">
14882       <div class="title">
14883         <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>
14884       </div>
14885       <div class="date">
14886         12th January 2011
14887       </div>
14888       <div class="body">
14889         <p>Today I discovered
14890 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
14891 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
14892 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
14893 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
14894 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
14895 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
14896 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
14897 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
14898 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
14899 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
14900 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
14901 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
14902 on the Google announcement is available from
14903 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
14904 A good read. :)</p>
14905
14906 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
14907 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
14908 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
14909 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
14910 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
14911 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
14912 browsers support H.264, and others support
14913 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
14914 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
14915 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
14916 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
14917 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
14918 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
14919 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
14920 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
14921
14922 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
14923 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
14924 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
14925 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
14926 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
14927 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
14928 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
14929
14930 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
14931 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
14932 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
14933 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
14934 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
14935 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
14936 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
14937
14938 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
14939 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
14940 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
14941 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
14942 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
14943 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
14944 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
14945
14946 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
14947 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
14948 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
14949 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
14950 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
14951 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
14952 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
14953 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
14954 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
14955 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
14956 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
14957 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
14958 I guess time will tell.</p>
14959
14960 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
14961 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
14962 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
14963
14964       </div>
14965       <div class="tags">
14966
14967
14968         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>.
14969
14970
14971       </div>
14972     </div>
14973     <div class="padding"></div>
14974
14975     <div class="entry">
14976       <div class="title">
14977         <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>
14978       </div>
14979       <div class="date">
14980         30th December 2010
14981       </div>
14982       <div class="body">
14983         <p>After trying to
14984 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
14985 Ogg Theora</a> to
14986 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
14987 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
14988 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
14989 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
14990 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
14991 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
14992 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
14993
14994 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
14995 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
14996 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
14997 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
14998 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
14999 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
15000 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
15001
15002 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
15003 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
15004
15005       </div>
15006       <div class="tags">
15007
15008
15009         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>.
15010
15011
15012       </div>
15013     </div>
15014     <div class="padding"></div>
15015
15016     <div class="entry">
15017       <div class="title">
15018         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
15019       </div>
15020       <div class="date">
15021         27th December 2010
15022       </div>
15023       <div class="body">
15024         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
15025 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
15026 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
15027 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
15028 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
15029 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
15030 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
15031 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
15032
15033 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
15034 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
15035 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
15036 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
15037 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
15038 page</a>.</p>
15039
15040 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
15041 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
15042 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
15043 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
15044 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
15045 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
15046 specification on equal terms.</p>
15047
15048 <blockquote>
15049
15050 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
15051 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
15052 open standard:</p>
15053
15054 <ul>
15055
15056 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
15057 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
15058 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
15059 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
15060
15061 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
15062 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
15063 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
15064 nominal fee.</li>
15065
15066 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
15067 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
15068 free basis.</li>
15069
15070 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
15071
15072 </ul>
15073 </blockquote>
15074
15075 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
15076 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
15077 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
15078 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
15079 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
15080 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
15081 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
15082
15083 <blockquote>
15084
15085 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
15086
15087 <ol>
15088
15089 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
15090 tilgængelig.</li>
15091
15092 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
15093 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
15094
15095 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
15096 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
15097
15098 </ol>
15099
15100 </blockquote>
15101
15102 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
15103 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
15104
15105 <blockquote>
15106
15107 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
15108
15109 <ol>
15110
15111 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
15112 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
15113
15114 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
15115 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
15116 Standard themselves;</li>
15117
15118 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
15119 any party or in any business model;</li>
15120
15121 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
15122 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
15123 parties;</li>
15124
15125 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
15126 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
15127 parties.</li>
15128
15129 </ol>
15130
15131 </blockquote>
15132
15133 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
15134 its
15135 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
15136 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
15137
15138 <blockquote>
15139 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
15140
15141 <ul>
15142
15143 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
15144   democratic:
15145
15146          <ul>
15147
15148          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
15149             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
15150             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
15151             and managed.</li>
15152
15153          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
15154             method, can be changed through input from all
15155             participants.</li>
15156
15157          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
15158             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
15159
15160          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
15161             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
15162
15163          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
15164             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
15165             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
15166
15167          </ul>
15168
15169 </li>
15170
15171 </ul>
15172
15173 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
15174 <ul>
15175
15176 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
15177   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
15178   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
15179   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
15180   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
15181
15182 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
15183   a technical or economic barriers</li>
15184
15185 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
15186   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
15187   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
15188   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
15189   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
15190   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
15191   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
15192   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
15193   intended to function.</li>
15194
15195 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
15196   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
15197   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
15198
15199 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
15200   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
15201   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
15202   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
15203   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
15204   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
15205   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
15206   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
15207
15208       <ul>
15209
15210       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
15211         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
15212         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
15213
15214       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
15215         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
15216         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
15217         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
15218
15219       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
15220         licensor</li>
15221
15222       </ul>
15223 </li>
15224
15225 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
15226   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
15227   or restricted licensing terms</li>
15228
15229 </ul>
15230
15231 </blockquote>
15232
15233 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
15234 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
15235 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
15236 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
15237 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
15238 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
15239 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
15240 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
15241 Standards.</p>
15242
15243       </div>
15244       <div class="tags">
15245
15246
15247         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>.
15248
15249
15250       </div>
15251     </div>
15252     <div class="padding"></div>
15253
15254     <div class="entry">
15255       <div class="title">
15256         <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>
15257       </div>
15258       <div class="date">
15259         25th December 2010
15260       </div>
15261       <div class="body">
15262         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
15263 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
15264
15265 <blockquote>
15266
15267 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
15268 as follows:</p>
15269
15270 <ol>
15271
15272 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
15273 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
15274 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
15275
15276 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
15277 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
15278 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
15279 parties.</li>
15280
15281 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
15282 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
15283 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
15284
15285 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
15286 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
15287
15288 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
15289
15290 </ol>
15291
15292 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
15293 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
15294 products based on the standard.</p>
15295 </blockquote>
15296
15297 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
15298 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
15299 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
15300 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
15301 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
15302 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
15303 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
15304 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
15305
15306 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
15307
15308 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
15309 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
15310 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
15311 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
15312 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
15313 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
15314 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
15315 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
15316 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
15317 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
15318 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
15319 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
15320 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
15321 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
15322
15323 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
15324
15325 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
15326 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
15327 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
15328 documentation indicating this.</p>
15329
15330 <p>According to
15331 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
15332 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
15333 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
15334 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
15335 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
15336 report is correct.</p>
15337
15338 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
15339
15340 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
15341 container format</a> and both the
15342 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
15343 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
15344 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
15345
15346 <blockquote>
15347
15348 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
15349 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
15350 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
15351 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
15352 specification compliance.
15353
15354 </blockquote>
15355
15356 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
15357 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
15358 this is the term:<p>
15359
15360 <blockquote>
15361
15362 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
15363 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
15364 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
15365 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
15366 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
15367 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
15368 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
15369 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
15370 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
15371 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
15372 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
15373 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
15374
15375 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
15376 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
15377 </blockquote>
15378
15379 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
15380 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
15381 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
15382 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
15383 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
15384
15385 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
15386
15387 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
15388 Theora format.
15389 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
15390 and
15391 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
15392 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
15393 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
15394 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
15395 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
15396 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
15397 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
15398 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
15399
15400 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
15401
15402 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
15403
15404 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
15405
15406 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
15407 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
15408 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
15409 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
15410 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
15411 this.</p>
15412
15413 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
15414 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
15415
15416       </div>
15417       <div class="tags">
15418
15419
15420         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>.
15421
15422
15423       </div>
15424     </div>
15425     <div class="padding"></div>
15426
15427     <div class="entry">
15428       <div class="title">
15429         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_reply_from_Edgar_Villanueva_to_Microsoft_in_Peru.html">The reply from Edgar Villanueva to Microsoft in Peru</a>
15430       </div>
15431       <div class="date">
15432         25th December 2010
15433       </div>
15434       <div class="body">
15435         <p>A few days ago
15436 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
15437 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
15438 2.0 of
15439 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
15440 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
15441 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
15442 Nothing very surprising there, given
15443 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
15444 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
15445 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
15446 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
15447 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
15448 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
15449 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
15450 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
15451 standard definition from its content.</p>
15452
15453 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
15454 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
15455 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
15456 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
15457 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
15458 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
15459 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
15460 background information about that story is available in
15461 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
15462 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
15463
15464 <blockquote>
15465 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
15466 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
15467 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
15468
15469 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
15470
15471 <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>
15472
15473 <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>
15474
15475 <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>
15476
15477 <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>
15478
15479 <p>
15480 <ul>
15481 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
15482 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
15483 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
15484 </ul>
15485 </p>
15486
15487 <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>
15488
15489 <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>
15490
15491 <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>
15492
15493 <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>
15494
15495 <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>
15496
15497
15498 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
15499 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
15500 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
15501 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
15502 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
15503 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
15504
15505 </p>
15506
15507 <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>
15508
15509 <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>
15510
15511 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
15512
15513 <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>
15514
15515 <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>
15516
15517 <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>
15518
15519 <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>
15520
15521 <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>
15522
15523 <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>
15524
15525 <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>
15526
15527 <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>
15528
15529 <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>
15530
15531 <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>
15532
15533 <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>
15534
15535 <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>
15536
15537 <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>
15538
15539 <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>
15540
15541 <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>
15542
15543 <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>
15544
15545 <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>
15546
15547 <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>
15548
15549 <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>
15550
15551 <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>
15552
15553 <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>
15554
15555 <p>On security:</p>
15556
15557 <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>
15558
15559 <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>
15560
15561 <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>
15562
15563 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
15564
15565 <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>
15566
15567 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
15568
15569 <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>
15570
15571 <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>
15572
15573 <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>
15574
15575 <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>
15576
15577 <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>
15578
15579 <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>
15580
15581 <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>
15582
15583 <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>
15584
15585 <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>
15586
15587 <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>
15588
15589 <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>
15590
15591 <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>
15592
15593 <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>
15594
15595 <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>
15596
15597 <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>
15598
15599 <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>
15600
15601 <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>
15602
15603 <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>
15604
15605 <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>
15606
15607 <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>
15608
15609 <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>
15610
15611 <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>
15612
15613 <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>
15614
15615 <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>
15616
15617 <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>
15618
15619 <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>
15620
15621 <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>
15622
15623 <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>
15624
15625 <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>
15626
15627 <p>Cordially,<br>
15628 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
15629 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
15630 </blockquote>
15631
15632       </div>
15633       <div class="tags">
15634
15635
15636         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>.
15637
15638
15639       </div>
15640     </div>
15641     <div class="padding"></div>
15642
15643     <div class="entry">
15644       <div class="title">
15645         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
15646       </div>
15647       <div class="date">
15648         25th December 2010
15649       </div>
15650       <div class="body">
15651         <p>Half a year ago I
15652 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
15653 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
15654 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
15655 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
15656
15657 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
15658 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
15659 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
15660 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
15661 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
15662 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
15663 got such a great test tool available.</p>
15664
15665       </div>
15666       <div class="tags">
15667
15668
15669         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>.
15670
15671
15672       </div>
15673     </div>
15674     <div class="padding"></div>
15675
15676     <div class="entry">
15677       <div class="title">
15678         <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>
15679       </div>
15680       <div class="date">
15681         22nd December 2010
15682       </div>
15683       <div class="body">
15684         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
15685 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
15686 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
15687 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
15688 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
15689 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
15690 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
15691 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
15692 university.</p>
15693
15694 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
15695 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
15696 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
15697 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
15698 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
15699 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
15700 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
15701 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
15702
15703 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
15704 I perform on a new model.</p>
15705
15706 <ul>
15707
15708 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
15709 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
15710 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
15711
15712 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
15713 installation, X.org is working.</li>
15714
15715 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
15716 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
15717 reported by the program.</li>
15718
15719 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
15720 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
15721 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
15722 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
15723 normally test this by playing
15724 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
15725 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
15726
15727 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
15728 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
15729
15730 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
15731 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
15732
15733 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
15734 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
15735
15736 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
15737 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
15738 few.</li>
15739
15740 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
15741 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
15742 notice this.</li>
15743
15744 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
15745 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
15746 resume.</li>
15747
15748 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
15749 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
15750 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
15751 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
15752 not.</li>
15753
15754 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
15755 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
15756 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
15757 existence.</li>
15758
15759 </ul>
15760
15761 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
15762 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
15763 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
15764 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
15765 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
15766 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
15767 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
15768 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
15769
15770       </div>
15771       <div class="tags">
15772
15773
15774         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>.
15775
15776
15777       </div>
15778     </div>
15779     <div class="padding"></div>
15780
15781     <div class="entry">
15782       <div class="title">
15783         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
15784       </div>
15785       <div class="date">
15786         11th December 2010
15787       </div>
15788       <div class="body">
15789         <p>As I continue to explore
15790 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
15791 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
15792 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
15793
15794 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
15795 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
15796 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
15797 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
15798 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
15799 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
15800 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
15801 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
15802 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
15803 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
15804 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
15805 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
15806 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
15807 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
15808 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
15809 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
15810 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
15811 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
15812 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
15813 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
15814
15815 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
15816 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
15817 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
15818 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
15819 If the Skolelinux foundation
15820 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
15821 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
15822 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
15823 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
15824 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
15825 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
15826 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
15827 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
15828
15829 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
15830 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
15831 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
15832 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
15833 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
15834 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
15835 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
15836 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
15837 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
15838 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
15839 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
15840 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
15841 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
15842 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
15843 currencies.</p>
15844
15845 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
15846 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
15847 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
15848 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
15849 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
15850 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
15851 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
15852 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
15853 BitCoins.  Check out
15854 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
15855 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
15856 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
15857 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
15858 yet.</p>
15859
15860 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
15861 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
15862 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
15863 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
15864 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
15865
15866       </div>
15867       <div class="tags">
15868
15869
15870         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>.
15871
15872
15873       </div>
15874     </div>
15875     <div class="padding"></div>
15876
15877     <div class="entry">
15878       <div class="title">
15879         <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>
15880       </div>
15881       <div class="date">
15882         10th December 2010
15883       </div>
15884       <div class="body">
15885         <p>With this weeks lawless
15886 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
15887 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
15888 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
15889 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
15890 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
15891 A blog post from
15892 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
15893 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
15894 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
15895 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
15896 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
15897 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
15898 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
15899
15900 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
15901 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
15902 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
15903 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
15904 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
15905 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
15906 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
15907 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
15908 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
15909 Debian</a> soon.</p>
15910
15911 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
15912 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
15913 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
15914 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
15915 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
15916 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
15917 you can even get
15918 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
15919 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
15920 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
15921 on the current exchange rates.</p>
15922
15923 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
15924 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
15925 donations to the address
15926 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
15927
15928       </div>
15929       <div class="tags">
15930
15931
15932         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>.
15933
15934
15935       </div>
15936     </div>
15937     <div class="padding"></div>
15938
15939     <div class="entry">
15940       <div class="title">
15941         <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>
15942       </div>
15943       <div class="date">
15944          9th December 2010
15945       </div>
15946       <div class="body">
15947         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
15948 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
15949 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
15950 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
15951 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
15952 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
15953 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
15954 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
15955 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
15956 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
15957 operational.</p>
15958
15959 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
15960 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
15961 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
15962 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
15963 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
15964 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
15965 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
15966
15967       </div>
15968       <div class="tags">
15969
15970
15971         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>.
15972
15973
15974       </div>
15975     </div>
15976     <div class="padding"></div>
15977
15978     <div class="entry">
15979       <div class="title">
15980         <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>
15981       </div>
15982       <div class="date">
15983         29th November 2010
15984       </div>
15985       <div class="body">
15986         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
15987 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
15988 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
15989 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
15990 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
15991 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
15992
15993 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
15994 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
15995 will hold its
15996 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
15997 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
15998 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
15999 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
16000 vote this year.</p>
16001
16002       </div>
16003       <div class="tags">
16004
16005
16006         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
16007
16008
16009       </div>
16010     </div>
16011     <div class="padding"></div>
16012
16013     <div class="entry">
16014       <div class="title">
16015         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
16016       </div>
16017       <div class="date">
16018         27th November 2010
16019       </div>
16020       <div class="body">
16021         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
16022 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
16023 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
16024 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
16025 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
16026 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
16027 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
16028 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
16029
16030 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
16031 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
16032 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
16033 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
16034 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
16035 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
16036 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
16037 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
16038 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
16039 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
16040 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
16041
16042 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
16043 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
16044 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
16045 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
16046 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
16047 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
16048 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
16049 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
16050 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
16051 what is going on.</p>
16052
16053       </div>
16054       <div class="tags">
16055
16056
16057         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>.
16058
16059
16060       </div>
16061     </div>
16062     <div class="padding"></div>
16063
16064     <div class="entry">
16065       <div class="title">
16066         <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>
16067       </div>
16068       <div class="date">
16069         22nd November 2010
16070       </div>
16071       <div class="body">
16072         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
16073 upgrade testing of the
16074 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
16075 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
16076 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
16077 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
16078
16079 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
16080
16081 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
16082
16083 <blockquote><p>
16084   apache2.2-bin
16085   aptdaemon
16086   baobab
16087   binfmt-support
16088   browser-plugin-gnash
16089   cheese-common
16090   cli-common
16091   cups-pk-helper
16092   dmz-cursor-theme
16093   empathy
16094   empathy-common
16095   freedesktop-sound-theme
16096   freeglut3
16097   gconf-defaults-service
16098   gdm-themes
16099   gedit-plugins
16100   geoclue
16101   geoclue-hostip
16102   geoclue-localnet
16103   geoclue-manual
16104   geoclue-yahoo
16105   gnash
16106   gnash-common
16107   gnome
16108   gnome-backgrounds
16109   gnome-cards-data
16110   gnome-codec-install
16111   gnome-core
16112   gnome-desktop-environment
16113   gnome-disk-utility
16114   gnome-screenshot
16115   gnome-search-tool
16116   gnome-session-canberra
16117   gnome-system-log
16118   gnome-themes-extras
16119   gnome-themes-more
16120   gnome-user-share
16121   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
16122   gstreamer0.10-tools
16123   gtk2-engines
16124   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
16125   gtk2-engines-smooth
16126   hamster-applet
16127   libapache2-mod-dnssd
16128   libapr1
16129   libaprutil1
16130   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
16131   libaprutil1-ldap
16132   libart2.0-cil
16133   libboost-date-time1.42.0
16134   libboost-python1.42.0
16135   libboost-thread1.42.0
16136   libchamplain-0.4-0
16137   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
16138   libcheese-gtk18
16139   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
16140   libcryptui0
16141   libdiscid0
16142   libelf1
16143   libepc-1.0-2
16144   libepc-common
16145   libepc-ui-1.0-2
16146   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
16147   libfreerdp0
16148   libgconf2.0-cil
16149   libgdata-common
16150   libgdata7
16151   libgdu-gtk0
16152   libgee2
16153   libgeoclue0
16154   libgexiv2-0
16155   libgif4
16156   libglade2.0-cil
16157   libglib2.0-cil
16158   libgmime2.4-cil
16159   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
16160   libgnome2.24-cil
16161   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
16162   libgpod-common
16163   libgpod4
16164   libgtk2.0-cil
16165   libgtkglext1
16166   libgtksourceview2.0-common
16167   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
16168   libmono-addins0.2-cil
16169   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
16170   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
16171   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
16172   libmono-posix2.0-cil
16173   libmono-security2.0-cil
16174   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
16175   libmono-system2.0-cil
16176   libmtp8
16177   libmusicbrainz3-6
16178   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
16179   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
16180   libopal3.6.8
16181   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
16182   libpt2.6.7
16183   libpython2.6
16184   librpm1
16185   librpmio1
16186   libsdl1.2debian
16187   libsrtp0
16188   libssh-4
16189   libtelepathy-farsight0
16190   libtelepathy-glib0
16191   libtidy-0.99-0
16192   media-player-info
16193   mesa-utils
16194   mono-2.0-gac
16195   mono-gac
16196   mono-runtime
16197   nautilus-sendto
16198   nautilus-sendto-empathy
16199   p7zip-full
16200   pkg-config
16201   python-aptdaemon
16202   python-aptdaemon-gtk
16203   python-axiom
16204   python-beautifulsoup
16205   python-bugbuddy
16206   python-clientform
16207   python-coherence
16208   python-configobj
16209   python-crypto
16210   python-cupshelpers
16211   python-elementtree
16212   python-epsilon
16213   python-evolution
16214   python-feedparser
16215   python-gdata
16216   python-gdbm
16217   python-gst0.10
16218   python-gtkglext1
16219   python-gtksourceview2
16220   python-httplib2
16221   python-louie
16222   python-mako
16223   python-markupsafe
16224   python-mechanize
16225   python-nevow
16226   python-notify
16227   python-opengl
16228   python-openssl
16229   python-pam
16230   python-pkg-resources
16231   python-pyasn1
16232   python-pysqlite2
16233   python-rdflib
16234   python-serial
16235   python-tagpy
16236   python-twisted-bin
16237   python-twisted-conch
16238   python-twisted-core
16239   python-twisted-web
16240   python-utidylib
16241   python-webkit
16242   python-xdg
16243   python-zope.interface
16244   remmina
16245   remmina-plugin-data
16246   remmina-plugin-rdp
16247   remmina-plugin-vnc
16248   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
16249   rhythmbox-plugins
16250   rpm-common
16251   rpm2cpio
16252   seahorse-plugins
16253   shotwell
16254   software-center
16255   system-config-printer-udev
16256   telepathy-gabble
16257   telepathy-mission-control-5
16258   telepathy-salut
16259   tomboy
16260   totem
16261   totem-coherence
16262   totem-mozilla
16263   totem-plugins
16264   transmission-common
16265   xdg-user-dirs
16266   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
16267   xserver-xephyr
16268 </p></blockquote>
16269
16270 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
16271
16272 <blockquote><p>
16273   cheese
16274   ekiga
16275   eog
16276   epiphany-extensions
16277   evolution-exchange
16278   fast-user-switch-applet
16279   file-roller
16280   gcalctool
16281   gconf-editor
16282   gdm
16283   gedit
16284   gedit-common
16285   gnome-games
16286   gnome-games-data
16287   gnome-nettool
16288   gnome-system-tools
16289   gnome-themes
16290   gnuchess
16291   gucharmap
16292   guile-1.8-libs
16293   libavahi-ui0
16294   libdmx1
16295   libgalago3
16296   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
16297   libgtksourceview2.0-0
16298   liblircclient0
16299   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
16300   libspeexdsp1
16301   libsvga1
16302   rhythmbox
16303   seahorse
16304   sound-juicer
16305   system-config-printer
16306   totem-common
16307   transmission-gtk
16308   vinagre
16309   vino
16310 </p></blockquote>
16311
16312 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
16313
16314 <blockquote><p>
16315   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
16316 </p></blockquote>
16317
16318 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
16319
16320 <blockquote><p>
16321 [nothing]
16322 </p></blockquote>
16323
16324 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
16325
16326 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
16327
16328 <blockquote><p>
16329   ksmserver
16330 </p></blockquote>
16331
16332 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
16333
16334 <blockquote><p>
16335   kwin
16336   network-manager-kde
16337 </p></blockquote>
16338
16339 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
16340
16341 <blockquote><p>
16342   arts
16343   dolphin
16344   freespacenotifier
16345   google-gadgets-gst
16346   google-gadgets-xul
16347   kappfinder
16348   kcalc
16349   kcharselect
16350   kde-core
16351   kde-plasma-desktop
16352   kde-standard
16353   kde-window-manager
16354   kdeartwork
16355   kdeartwork-emoticons
16356   kdeartwork-style
16357   kdeartwork-theme-icon
16358   kdebase
16359   kdebase-apps
16360   kdebase-workspace
16361   kdebase-workspace-bin
16362   kdebase-workspace-data
16363   kdeeject
16364   kdelibs
16365   kdeplasma-addons
16366   kdeutils
16367   kdewallpapers
16368   kdf
16369   kfloppy
16370   kgpg
16371   khelpcenter4
16372   kinfocenter
16373   konq-plugins-l10n
16374   konqueror-nsplugins
16375   kscreensaver
16376   kscreensaver-xsavers
16377   ktimer
16378   kwrite
16379   libgle3
16380   libkde4-ruby1.8
16381   libkonq5
16382   libkonq5-templates
16383   libnetpbm10
16384   libplasma-ruby
16385   libplasma-ruby1.8
16386   libqt4-ruby1.8
16387   marble-data
16388   marble-plugins
16389   netpbm
16390   nuvola-icon-theme
16391   plasma-dataengines-workspace
16392   plasma-desktop
16393   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
16394   plasma-runners-addons
16395   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
16396   plasma-scriptengine-python
16397   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
16398   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
16399   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
16400   plasma-scriptengines
16401   plasma-wallpapers-addons
16402   plasma-widget-folderview
16403   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
16404   ruby
16405   sweeper
16406   update-notifier-kde
16407   xscreensaver-data-extra
16408   xscreensaver-gl
16409   xscreensaver-gl-extra
16410   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
16411 </p></blockquote>
16412
16413 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
16414
16415 <blockquote><p>
16416   ark
16417   google-gadgets-common
16418   google-gadgets-qt
16419   htdig
16420   kate
16421   kdebase-bin
16422   kdebase-data
16423   kdepasswd
16424   kfind
16425   klipper
16426   konq-plugins
16427   konqueror
16428   ksysguard
16429   ksysguardd
16430   libarchive1
16431   libcln6
16432   libeet1
16433   libeina-svn-06
16434   libggadget-1.0-0b
16435   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
16436   libgps19
16437   libkdecorations4
16438   libkephal4
16439   libkonq4
16440   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
16441   libkscreensaver5
16442   libksgrd4
16443   libksignalplotter4
16444   libkunitconversion4
16445   libkwineffects1a
16446   libmarblewidget4
16447   libntrack-qt4-1
16448   libntrack0
16449   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
16450   libplasmaclock4a
16451   libplasmagenericshell4
16452   libprocesscore4a
16453   libprocessui4a
16454   libqalculate5
16455   libqedje0a
16456   libqtruby4shared2
16457   libqzion0a
16458   libruby1.8
16459   libscim8c2a
16460   libsmokekdecore4-3
16461   libsmokekdeui4-3
16462   libsmokekfile3
16463   libsmokekhtml3
16464   libsmokekio3
16465   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
16466   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
16467   libsmokekparts3
16468   libsmokektexteditor3
16469   libsmokekutils3
16470   libsmokenepomuk3
16471   libsmokephonon3
16472   libsmokeplasma3
16473   libsmokeqtcore4-3
16474   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
16475   libsmokeqtgui4-3
16476   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
16477   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
16478   libsmokeqtscript4-3
16479   libsmokeqtsql4-3
16480   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
16481   libsmokeqttest4-3
16482   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
16483   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
16484   libsmokeqtxml4-3
16485   libsmokesolid3
16486   libsmokesoprano3
16487   libtaskmanager4a
16488   libtidy-0.99-0
16489   libweather-ion4a
16490   libxklavier16
16491   libxxf86misc1
16492   okteta
16493   oxygencursors
16494   plasma-dataengines-addons
16495   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
16496   plasma-widget-lancelot
16497   plasma-widgets-addons
16498   plasma-widgets-workspace
16499   polkit-kde-1
16500   ruby1.8
16501   systemsettings
16502   update-notifier-common
16503 </p></blockquote>
16504
16505 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
16506 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
16507 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
16508 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
16509
16510       </div>
16511       <div class="tags">
16512
16513
16514         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>.
16515
16516
16517       </div>
16518     </div>
16519     <div class="padding"></div>
16520
16521     <div class="entry">
16522       <div class="title">
16523         <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>
16524       </div>
16525       <div class="date">
16526         22nd November 2010
16527       </div>
16528       <div class="body">
16529         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
16530 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
16531 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
16532 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
16533 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
16534 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
16535 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
16536 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
16537 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
16538
16539 <p>I found
16540 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
16541 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
16542 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
16543 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
16544 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
16545 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
16546
16547 <pre>
16548 #!/bin/sh
16549
16550 # Based on
16551 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
16552
16553 set -e
16554 set -x
16555
16556 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
16557     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
16558     exit 1
16559 else
16560     host="$1"
16561 fi
16562
16563 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
16564     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
16565     exit 1
16566 fi
16567
16568 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
16569 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
16570 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
16571 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
16572
16573 img=$host.img
16574 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
16575 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
16576
16577 parted $img mklabel msdos
16578 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
16579 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
16580 parted $img set 1 boot on
16581
16582 modprobe dm-mod
16583 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
16584 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
16585
16586 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
16587 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
16588 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
16589
16590 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
16591 losetup -d /dev/loop0
16592 </pre>
16593
16594 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
16595 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
16596
16597 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
16598 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
16599 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
16600 seem to work just fine.</p>
16601
16602       </div>
16603       <div class="tags">
16604
16605
16606         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>.
16607
16608
16609       </div>
16610     </div>
16611     <div class="padding"></div>
16612
16613     <div class="entry">
16614       <div class="title">
16615         <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>
16616       </div>
16617       <div class="date">
16618         20th November 2010
16619       </div>
16620       <div class="body">
16621         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
16622 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
16623 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
16624 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
16625
16626 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
16627 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
16628 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
16629
16630 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
16631
16632 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
16633
16634 <blockquote><p>
16635   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
16636   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
16637   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
16638   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
16639   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
16640   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
16641   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
16642   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
16643   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
16644   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
16645   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
16646   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
16647   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
16648   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
16649   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
16650   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
16651   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
16652   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
16653   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
16654   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
16655   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
16656   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
16657   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
16658   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
16659   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
16660   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
16661   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
16662   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
16663   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
16664   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
16665   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
16666   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
16667   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
16668   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
16669   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
16670   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
16671   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
16672   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
16673   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
16674   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
16675   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
16676   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
16677   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
16678   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
16679   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
16680   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
16681   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
16682   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
16683   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
16684   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
16685   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
16686   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
16687   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
16688   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
16689   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
16690   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
16691   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
16692   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
16693   zip
16694 </p></blockquote>
16695
16696 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
16697
16698 <blockquote><p>
16699   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
16700   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
16701   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
16702   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
16703   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
16704   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
16705   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
16706   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
16707   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
16708   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
16709   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
16710   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
16711   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
16712   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
16713   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
16714   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
16715   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
16716   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
16717   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
16718   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
16719   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
16720   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
16721   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
16722   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
16723   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
16724   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
16725   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
16726   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
16727   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
16728 </p></blockquote>
16729
16730 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
16731
16732 <blockquote><p>
16733   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
16734 </p></blockquote>
16735
16736 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
16737
16738 <blockquote><p>
16739 [nothing]
16740 </p></blockquote>
16741
16742 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
16743
16744 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
16745
16746 <blockquote><p>
16747   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
16748   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
16749   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
16750   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
16751   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
16752   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
16753   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
16754   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
16755   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
16756   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
16757   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
16758   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
16759   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
16760   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
16761   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
16762   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
16763   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
16764   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
16765   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
16766   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
16767   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
16768   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
16769   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
16770   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
16771   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
16772   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
16773   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
16774   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
16775   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
16776   ttf-sazanami-gothic
16777 </p></blockquote>
16778
16779 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
16780
16781 <blockquote><p>
16782   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
16783   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
16784   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
16785   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
16786   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
16787   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
16788   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
16789   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
16790   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
16791   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
16792   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
16793   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
16794   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
16795   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
16796   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
16797   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
16798   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
16799   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
16800   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
16801   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
16802   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
16803   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
16804   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
16805   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
16806   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
16807   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
16808   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
16809   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
16810   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
16811   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
16812   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
16813   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
16814   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
16815 </p></blockquote>
16816
16817 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
16818
16819 <blockquote><p>
16820   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
16821   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
16822   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
16823   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
16824   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
16825   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
16826   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
16827 </p></blockquote>
16828
16829 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
16830
16831 <blockquote><p>
16832   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
16833 </p></blockquote>
16834
16835       </div>
16836       <div class="tags">
16837
16838
16839         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>.
16840
16841
16842       </div>
16843     </div>
16844     <div class="padding"></div>
16845
16846     <div class="entry">
16847       <div class="title">
16848         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
16849       </div>
16850       <div class="date">
16851         20th November 2010
16852       </div>
16853       <div class="body">
16854         <p>Answering
16855 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
16856 call from the Gnash project</a> for
16857 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
16858 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
16859 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
16860 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
16861 releases out more often.</p>
16862
16863 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
16864 I have considered setting up a <a
16865 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
16866 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
16867 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
16868 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
16869 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
16870 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
16871 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
16872 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
16873 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
16874 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
16875 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
16876 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
16877
16878       </div>
16879       <div class="tags">
16880
16881
16882         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>.
16883
16884
16885       </div>
16886     </div>
16887     <div class="padding"></div>
16888
16889     <div class="entry">
16890       <div class="title">
16891         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
16892       </div>
16893       <div class="date">
16894          9th November 2010
16895       </div>
16896       <div class="body">
16897         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
16898
16899 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
16900 3D linked in from
16901 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
16902 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
16903
16904       </div>
16905       <div class="tags">
16906
16907
16908         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>.
16909
16910
16911       </div>
16912     </div>
16913     <div class="padding"></div>
16914
16915     <div class="entry">
16916       <div class="title">
16917         <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>
16918       </div>
16919       <div class="date">
16920          7th November 2010
16921       </div>
16922       <div class="body">
16923         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
16924 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
16925 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
16926 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
16927 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
16928 working using this DVD.</p>
16929
16930 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
16931 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
16932 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
16933 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
16934 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
16935 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
16936 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
16937
16938 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
16939 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
16940 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
16941 Debian archive.</p>
16942
16943 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
16944 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
16945 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
16946 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
16947 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
16948 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
16949 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
16950 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
16951 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
16952 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
16953 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
16954 free X driver should work.</p>
16955
16956 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
16957 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
16958 DVD more useful again.</p>
16959
16960       </div>
16961       <div class="tags">
16962
16963
16964         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
16965
16966
16967       </div>
16968     </div>
16969     <div class="padding"></div>
16970
16971     <div class="entry">
16972       <div class="title">
16973         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
16974       </div>
16975       <div class="date">
16976         24th October 2010
16977       </div>
16978       <div class="body">
16979         <p>Some updates.</p>
16980
16981 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
16982 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
16983 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
16984 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
16985 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
16986 :)</p>
16987
16988 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
16989 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
16990 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
16991 It is called
16992 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
16993 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
16994 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
16995 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
16996 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
16997 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
16998
16999 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
17000 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
17001 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
17002 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
17003 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
17004 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
17005 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
17006 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
17007 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
17008 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
17009
17010       </div>
17011       <div class="tags">
17012
17013
17014         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>.
17015
17016
17017       </div>
17018     </div>
17019     <div class="padding"></div>
17020
17021     <div class="entry">
17022       <div class="title">
17023         <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>
17024       </div>
17025       <div class="date">
17026         19th October 2010
17027       </div>
17028       <div class="body">
17029         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
17030 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
17031 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
17032 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
17033 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
17034 AVM2 flash files.</p>
17035
17036 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
17037 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
17038 following text:</P>
17039
17040 <p><blockquote>
17041
17042   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
17043   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
17044
17045   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
17046
17047   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
17048
17049   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
17050   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
17051   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
17052   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
17053   days. The project web page is available from
17054   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
17055   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
17056   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
17057
17058   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
17059   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
17060   to get this to happen.</p>
17061
17062   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
17063   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
17064
17065 </blockquote></p>
17066
17067 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
17068 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
17069 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
17070 :)</p>
17071
17072       </div>
17073       <div class="tags">
17074
17075
17076         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>.
17077
17078
17079       </div>
17080     </div>
17081     <div class="padding"></div>
17082
17083     <div class="entry">
17084       <div class="title">
17085         <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>
17086       </div>
17087       <div class="date">
17088          9th October 2010
17089       </div>
17090       <div class="body">
17091         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
17092 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
17093 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
17094 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
17095 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
17096 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
17097 robots.</p>
17098
17099 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
17100 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
17101 a few less important features too.</p>
17102
17103 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
17104 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
17105 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
17106 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
17107
17108 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
17109 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
17110 source or binary package:</p>
17111
17112 <p><ul>
17113 <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>
17114 <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>
17115 <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>
17116 </ul></p>
17117
17118 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
17119 please let me know.</p>
17120
17121       </div>
17122       <div class="tags">
17123
17124
17125         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>.
17126
17127
17128       </div>
17129     </div>
17130     <div class="padding"></div>
17131
17132     <div class="entry">
17133       <div class="title">
17134         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
17135       </div>
17136       <div class="date">
17137          3rd October 2010
17138       </div>
17139       <div class="body">
17140         <p><ul>
17141
17142 <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
17143 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
17144
17145 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
17146 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
17147 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
17148
17149 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
17150 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
17151 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
17152 simple setup.
17153
17154 </ul></p>
17155
17156       </div>
17157       <div class="tags">
17158
17159
17160         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>.
17161
17162
17163       </div>
17164     </div>
17165     <div class="padding"></div>
17166
17167     <div class="entry">
17168       <div class="title">
17169         <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>
17170       </div>
17171       <div class="date">
17172          9th September 2010
17173       </div>
17174       <div class="body">
17175         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
17176 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
17177 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
17178 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
17179 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
17180 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
17181 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
17182 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
17183 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
17184
17185 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
17186 written:</p>
17187
17188 <blockquote>
17189 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
17190 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
17191 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
17192 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
17193 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
17194
17195 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
17196 standard.</p>
17197 </blockquote>
17198
17199 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
17200 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
17201 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
17202 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
17203
17204 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
17205 read
17206 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
17207 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
17208 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
17209 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
17210 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
17211 the issue.  The solution is to support the
17212 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
17213 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
17214 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
17215
17216       </div>
17217       <div class="tags">
17218
17219
17220         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>.
17221
17222
17223       </div>
17224     </div>
17225     <div class="padding"></div>
17226
17227     <div class="entry">
17228       <div class="title">
17229         <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>
17230       </div>
17231       <div class="date">
17232          4th September 2010
17233       </div>
17234       <div class="body">
17235         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
17236 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
17237 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
17238 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
17239 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
17240 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
17241 installed.</p>
17242
17243 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
17244 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
17245 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
17246 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
17247 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
17248 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
17249 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
17250 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
17251 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
17252
17253 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
17254 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
17255 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
17256 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
17257 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
17258 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
17259 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
17260 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
17261 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
17262 pages they want to visit.</p>
17263
17264 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
17265 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
17266 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
17267 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
17268 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
17269 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
17270 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
17271 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
17272 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
17273 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
17274 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
17275
17276       </div>
17277       <div class="tags">
17278
17279
17280         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>.
17281
17282
17283       </div>
17284     </div>
17285     <div class="padding"></div>
17286
17287     <div class="entry">
17288       <div class="title">
17289         <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>
17290       </div>
17291       <div class="date">
17292          1st September 2010
17293       </div>
17294       <div class="body">
17295         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
17296 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
17297 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
17298 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
17299 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
17300 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
17301 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
17302 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
17303 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
17304 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
17305 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
17306 drive around.</p>
17307
17308 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
17309 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
17310
17311 <p><pre>
17312 use Spykee;
17313 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
17314 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
17315 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
17316 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
17317 $spykee->left();
17318 sleep 2;
17319 $spykee->right();
17320 sleep 2;
17321 $spykee->forward();
17322 sleep 2;
17323 $spykee->back();
17324 sleep 2;
17325 $spykee->stop();
17326 </pre></p>
17327
17328 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
17329 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
17330 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
17331 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
17332 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
17333 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
17334 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
17335 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
17336 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
17337 going. :).</p>
17338
17339 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
17340 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
17341 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
17342 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
17343
17344       </div>
17345       <div class="tags">
17346
17347
17348         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>.
17349
17350
17351       </div>
17352     </div>
17353     <div class="padding"></div>
17354
17355     <div class="entry">
17356       <div class="title">
17357         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
17358       </div>
17359       <div class="date">
17360         30th August 2010
17361       </div>
17362       <div class="body">
17363         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
17364 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
17365 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
17366 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
17367 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
17368 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
17369 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
17370
17371 <pre>
17372 % ln foo bar
17373 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
17374 %
17375 </pre>
17376
17377 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
17378 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
17379 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
17380 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
17381 nevertheless. :)</p>
17382
17383 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
17384 git from
17385 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
17386
17387       </div>
17388       <div class="tags">
17389
17390
17391         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
17392
17393
17394       </div>
17395     </div>
17396     <div class="padding"></div>
17397
17398     <div class="entry">
17399       <div class="title">
17400         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
17401       </div>
17402       <div class="date">
17403         26th August 2010
17404       </div>
17405       <div class="body">
17406         <p>My file system sematics program
17407 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
17408 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
17409 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
17410 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
17411 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
17412 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
17413 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
17414 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
17415 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
17416 script:</p>
17417
17418 <pre>
17419 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
17420   mode_t retval = 0;
17421   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
17422   if (-1 != fd) {
17423     unlink(name);
17424     struct stat statbuf;
17425     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
17426       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
17427     }
17428     close(fd);
17429   }
17430   return retval;
17431 }
17432
17433 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
17434 int test_umask(void) {
17435   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
17436
17437   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
17438   mode_t newmode;
17439   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
17440     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
17441            newmode);
17442   }
17443   umask(007);
17444   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
17445     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
17446            newmode);
17447   }
17448
17449   umask (orig_umask);
17450   return 0;
17451 }
17452
17453 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
17454   [...]
17455   test_umask();
17456   return 0;
17457 }
17458 </pre>
17459
17460 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
17461
17462 <pre>
17463 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
17464 info: testing symlink creation
17465 info: testing subdirectory creation
17466 info: testing fcntl locking
17467   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
17468   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
17469   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
17470   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
17471   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
17472   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
17473 info: testing umask effect on file creation
17474 </pre>
17475
17476 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
17477 result:</p>
17478
17479 <pre>
17480 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
17481 info: testing symlink creation
17482 info: testing subdirectory creation
17483 info: testing fcntl locking
17484   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
17485   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
17486   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
17487   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
17488   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
17489   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
17490 info: testing umask effect on file creation
17491   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
17492   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
17493 </pre>
17494
17495 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
17496 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
17497 directory.</p>
17498
17499 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
17500 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
17501
17502 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
17503 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
17504 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
17505
17506       </div>
17507       <div class="tags">
17508
17509
17510         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
17511
17512
17513       </div>
17514     </div>
17515     <div class="padding"></div>
17516
17517     <div class="entry">
17518       <div class="title">
17519         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
17520       </div>
17521       <div class="date">
17522         15th August 2010
17523       </div>
17524       <div class="body">
17525         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
17526 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
17527 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
17528 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
17529 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
17530 long time.</p>
17531
17532       </div>
17533       <div class="tags">
17534
17535
17536         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>.
17537
17538
17539       </div>
17540     </div>
17541     <div class="padding"></div>
17542
17543     <div class="entry">
17544       <div class="title">
17545         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
17546       </div>
17547       <div class="date">
17548          9th August 2010
17549       </div>
17550       <div class="body">
17551         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
17552 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
17553 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
17554 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
17555 generated configuration.</p>
17556
17557 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
17558 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
17559 without any manual configuration.</p>
17560
17561 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
17562 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
17563 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
17564 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
17565 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
17566 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
17567 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
17568 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
17569 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
17570 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
17571 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
17572 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
17573 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
17574 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
17575 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
17576 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
17577 use.</p>
17578
17579 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
17580 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
17581 working properly out of the box:</p>
17582
17583 <ul>
17584 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
17585 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
17586 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
17587 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
17588 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
17589 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
17590 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
17591 </ul>
17592
17593 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
17594
17595 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
17596 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
17597 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
17598 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
17599 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
17600
17601 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
17602 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
17603 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
17604 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
17605 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
17606 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
17607 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
17608 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
17609
17610 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
17611 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
17612 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
17613 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
17614 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
17615 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
17616 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
17617 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
17618 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
17619 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
17620 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
17621 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
17622 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
17623 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
17624 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
17625 current DNS domain is used.</p>
17626
17627 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
17628 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
17629 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
17630 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
17631 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
17632 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
17633 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
17634 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
17635 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
17636 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
17637 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
17638 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
17639 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
17640
17641 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
17642 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
17643 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
17644 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
17645 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
17646 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
17647 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
17648 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
17649 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
17650 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
17651 do for now. :)</p>
17652
17653 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
17654 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
17655 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
17656 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
17657 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
17658 yet.</p>
17659
17660 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
17661 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17662
17663 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
17664 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
17665 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
17666 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
17667
17668       </div>
17669       <div class="tags">
17670
17671
17672         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
17673
17674
17675       </div>
17676     </div>
17677     <div class="padding"></div>
17678
17679     <div class="entry">
17680       <div class="title">
17681         <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>
17682       </div>
17683       <div class="date">
17684          8th August 2010
17685       </div>
17686       <div class="body">
17687         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
17688 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
17689 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
17690 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
17691 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
17692 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
17693 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
17694
17695 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
17696 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
17697 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
17698 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
17699 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
17700 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
17701 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
17702
17703 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
17704 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
17705 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
17706 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
17707 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
17708
17709 <pre>
17710 /*
17711  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
17712  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
17713  * directory.
17714  * License: GPL v2 or later
17715  *
17716  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
17717  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
17718 */
17719
17720 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
17721 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
17722 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
17723
17724 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
17725
17726 #include &lt;errno.h>
17727 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
17728 #include &lt;stdio.h>
17729 #include &lt;string.h>
17730 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
17731 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
17732 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
17733 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
17734 #include &lt;unistd.h>
17735
17736 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
17737 /*
17738  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
17739  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
17740  * below.
17741  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
17742  */
17743 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
17744 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
17745   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
17746 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
17747   char *zErrMsg;
17748   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
17749   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
17750   unlink(name);
17751   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
17752   if( rc ){
17753     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
17754     sqlite3_close(db);
17755     return -1;
17756   }
17757
17758   /* create tables */
17759   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
17760   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
17761     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
17762     sqlite3_close(db);
17763     return -1;
17764   }
17765   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
17766   sqlite3_close(db);
17767   return 0;
17768 }
17769 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
17770
17771 /*
17772  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
17773  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
17774  * done in the sqlite3 library.
17775  * See also
17776  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
17777  * POSIX specification
17778  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
17779  */
17780 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
17781   struct flock fl;
17782   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
17783   unlink(name);
17784   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
17785   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
17786
17787   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
17788   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
17789   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
17790   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
17791   fl.l_len    = 1;
17792   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
17793   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
17794
17795   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
17796   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
17797   fl.l_len    = 510;
17798   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
17799   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
17800
17801   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
17802   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
17803   fl.l_len    = 1;
17804   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
17805   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
17806
17807   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
17808   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
17809   fl.l_len    = 1;
17810   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
17811   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
17812
17813   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
17814   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
17815   fl.l_len    = 510;
17816   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
17817
17818   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
17819   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
17820   fl.l_len    = 2;
17821   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
17822   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
17823
17824   close(fd);
17825   return 0;
17826 }
17827
17828 /*
17829  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
17830  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
17831  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
17832  * slowing down file operations.
17833  */
17834 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
17835 #define LEVELS 5
17836   char *path = strdup("test");
17837   char *dirs[LEVELS];
17838   int level;
17839   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
17840   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
17841     char *newpath = NULL;
17842     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
17843       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
17844              path, strerror(errno));
17845       break;
17846     }
17847     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
17848     free(path);
17849     path = newpath;
17850   }
17851   return 0;
17852 }
17853
17854 /*
17855  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
17856  * KDE.
17857  */
17858 int test_symlinks(void) {
17859   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
17860   unlink("symlink");
17861   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
17862     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
17863   return 0;
17864 }
17865
17866 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
17867   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
17868   test_symlinks();
17869   test_subdirectory_creation();
17870 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
17871   test_sqlite_open();
17872 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
17873   test_gcompris_locking();
17874   return 0;
17875 }
17876 </pre>
17877
17878 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
17879 this:</p>
17880
17881 <pre>
17882 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
17883 info: testing symlink creation
17884 info: testing subdirectory creation
17885 info: sqlite worked
17886 info: testing fcntl locking
17887   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
17888   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
17889   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
17890   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
17891   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
17892   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
17893 </pre>
17894
17895 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
17896 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
17897 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
17898 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
17899 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
17900 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
17901 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
17902 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
17903
17904 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
17905 it. :)</p>
17906
17907 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
17908 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
17909 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
17910
17911       </div>
17912       <div class="tags">
17913
17914
17915         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
17916
17917
17918       </div>
17919     </div>
17920     <div class="padding"></div>
17921
17922     <div class="entry">
17923       <div class="title">
17924         <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>
17925       </div>
17926       <div class="date">
17927          7th August 2010
17928       </div>
17929       <div class="body">
17930         <p>A few days ago, I
17931 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
17932 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
17933 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
17934 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
17935 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
17936 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
17937 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
17938 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
17939 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
17940
17941 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
17942 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
17943 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
17944 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
17945 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
17946 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
17947 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
17948 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
17949 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
17950 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
17951 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
17952 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
17953 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
17954 gave it a IP address.</p>
17955
17956 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
17957 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
17958 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
17959 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
17960 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
17961 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
17962 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
17963 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
17964
17965 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
17966 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
17967 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
17968 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
17969 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
17970 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
17971
17972 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
17973 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
17974 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
17975 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
17976 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
17977 with UID and GID values.</p>
17978
17979 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
17980 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17981
17982       </div>
17983       <div class="tags">
17984
17985
17986         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
17987
17988
17989       </div>
17990     </div>
17991     <div class="padding"></div>
17992
17993     <div class="entry">
17994       <div class="title">
17995         <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>
17996       </div>
17997       <div class="date">
17998          3rd August 2010
17999       </div>
18000       <div class="body">
18001         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
18002 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
18003 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
18004 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
18005 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
18006 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
18007 servers.</p>
18008
18009 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
18010 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
18011 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
18012 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
18013 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
18014 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
18015 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
18016 .uio.no.</p>
18017
18018 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
18019 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
18020 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
18021 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
18022 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
18023 university servers.</p>
18024
18025 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
18026 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
18027 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
18028 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
18029 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
18030 uses.</p>
18031
18032       </div>
18033       <div class="tags">
18034
18035
18036         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
18037
18038
18039       </div>
18040     </div>
18041     <div class="padding"></div>
18042
18043     <div class="entry">
18044       <div class="title">
18045         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
18046       </div>
18047       <div class="date">
18048         27th July 2010
18049       </div>
18050       <div class="body">
18051         <p>I discovered this while doing
18052 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
18053 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
18054 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
18055 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
18056 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
18057
18058 <p>An example is from todays
18059 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
18060 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
18061 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
18062 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
18063 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
18064 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
18065 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
18066
18067 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
18068
18069 <blockquote><pre>
18070 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
18071  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
18072   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
18073 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
18074  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
18075 </pre></blockquote>
18076
18077 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
18078 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
18079 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
18080 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
18081 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
18082 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
18083 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
18084 of dependency loops.</p>
18085
18086 <p>Thanks to
18087 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
18088 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
18089 dependencies
18090 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
18091 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
18092
18093 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
18094 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
18095 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
18096 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
18097 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
18098 it.</p>
18099
18100       </div>
18101       <div class="tags">
18102
18103
18104         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>.
18105
18106
18107       </div>
18108     </div>
18109     <div class="padding"></div>
18110
18111     <div class="entry">
18112       <div class="title">
18113         <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>
18114       </div>
18115       <div class="date">
18116         27th July 2010
18117       </div>
18118       <div class="body">
18119         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
18120 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
18121 completed.</p>
18122
18123 <blockquote>
18124 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
18125 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
18126 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
18127 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
18128 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
18129 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
18130 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
18131 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
18132
18133 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
18134 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
18135 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
18136
18137 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
18138 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
18139 much.</p>
18140
18141 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
18142
18143 <ul>
18144 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
18145 <ul>
18146   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
18147          combination with some new artwork
18148   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
18149   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
18150   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
18151   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
18152   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
18153   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
18154   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
18155   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
18156   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
18157 </ul></li>
18158 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
18159     Enabled for:
18160 <ul>
18161   <li>PAM
18162   <li>LDAP
18163   <li>IMAP
18164   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
18165 </ul>
18166 </li>
18167 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
18168 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
18169     fetched from LDAP.</li>
18170 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
18171 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
18172 </ul>
18173 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
18174
18175 <ul>
18176 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
18177     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
18178     for testing.</li>
18179 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
18180     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
18181     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
18182 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
18183 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
18184 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
18185 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
18186     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
18187 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
18188     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
18189     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
18190 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
18191     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
18192     and help out with translations.</li>
18193 </ul>
18194
18195 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
18196
18197 <ul>
18198 <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>
18199 <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>
18200 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
18201 </ul>
18202 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
18203
18204 <ul>
18205 <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>
18206 <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>
18207 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
18208 </ul>
18209
18210 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
18211 get closer to the final release.</p>
18212
18213 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
18214
18215 <ul>
18216 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
18217 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
18218 </ul>
18219
18220 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
18221 <ul>
18222 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
18223 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
18224 </ul>
18225 <p>How to report bugs:
18226 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
18227
18228 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
18229 </blockquote>
18230
18231       </div>
18232       <div class="tags">
18233
18234
18235         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
18236
18237
18238       </div>
18239     </div>
18240     <div class="padding"></div>
18241
18242     <div class="entry">
18243       <div class="title">
18244         <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>
18245       </div>
18246       <div class="date">
18247         25th July 2010
18248       </div>
18249       <div class="body">
18250         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
18251 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
18252 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
18253 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
18254 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
18255
18256 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
18257 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
18258 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
18259 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
18260 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
18261 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
18262 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
18263
18264 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
18265 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
18266 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
18267 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
18268 up. :)</p>
18269
18270 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
18271 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
18272 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
18273
18274 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
18275 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
18276 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
18277 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
18278 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
18279 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
18280 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
18281 release another day.</p>
18282
18283 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
18284 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18285
18286       </div>
18287       <div class="tags">
18288
18289
18290         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
18291
18292
18293       </div>
18294     </div>
18295     <div class="padding"></div>
18296
18297     <div class="entry">
18298       <div class="title">
18299         <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>
18300       </div>
18301       <div class="date">
18302         18th July 2010
18303       </div>
18304       <div class="body">
18305         <p>Thanks to
18306 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
18307 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
18308 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
18309 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
18310 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
18311 only available from the development server, until more experience is
18312 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
18313
18314 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
18315 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
18316 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
18317 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
18318 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
18319 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
18320 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
18321
18322       </div>
18323       <div class="tags">
18324
18325
18326         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>.
18327
18328
18329       </div>
18330     </div>
18331     <div class="padding"></div>
18332
18333     <div class="entry">
18334       <div class="title">
18335         <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>
18336       </div>
18337       <div class="date">
18338         17th July 2010
18339       </div>
18340       <div class="body">
18341         <p>This is a
18342 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
18343 on my
18344 <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
18345 work</a> on
18346 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
18347 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
18348
18349 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
18350 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
18351 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
18352 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
18353
18354 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
18355 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
18356 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
18357
18358 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
18359
18360 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
18361 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
18362 the web.
18363
18364 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
18365 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
18366 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
18367 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
18368 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
18369 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
18370
18371 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
18372 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
18373 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
18374 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
18375 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
18376 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
18377 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
18378 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
18379 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
18380 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
18381 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
18382 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
18383 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
18384 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
18385 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
18386 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
18387
18388 <blockquote><pre>
18389 ldapsearch -h ldap \
18390   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
18391   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
18392   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
18393   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
18394   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
18395   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
18396
18397 ldapsearch -h ldap \
18398   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
18399   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
18400   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
18401   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
18402   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
18403 </pre></blockquote>
18404
18405 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
18406 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
18407 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
18408 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18409 also exist.</p>
18410
18411 <blockquote><pre>
18412 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18413 objectclass: top
18414 objectclass: dnsdomain
18415 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
18416 dc: tjener
18417 arecord: 10.0.2.2
18418 associateddomain: tjener.intern
18419
18420 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18421 objectclass: top
18422 objectclass: dnsdomain2
18423 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
18424 dc: 2
18425 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
18426 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
18427 </pre></blockquote>
18428
18429 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
18430 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
18431 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
18432 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
18433 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
18434 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
18435 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
18436 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
18437 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
18438 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
18439 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
18440 instead.</p>
18441
18442 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
18443 like this:</p>
18444
18445 <blockquote><pre>
18446 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
18447   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
18448   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
18449   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
18450   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
18451   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
18452
18453 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
18454   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
18455 </pre></blockquote>
18456
18457 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
18458 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
18459 reverse lookups.</p>
18460
18461 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
18462 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
18463 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
18464 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
18465
18466 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
18467 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
18468 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
18469
18470 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
18471 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
18472 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
18473 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
18474 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
18475
18476 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
18477 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
18478 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
18479 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
18480 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
18481
18482 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
18483 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
18484 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
18485 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
18486 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
18487 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
18488
18489 <blockquote><pre>
18490 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
18491     SUP top
18492     AUXILIARY
18493     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
18494           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
18495           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
18496           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
18497           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
18498     ))
18499 </pre></blockquote>
18500
18501 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
18502 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
18503 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
18504 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
18505 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
18506 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
18507
18508 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
18509
18510 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
18511 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
18512 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
18513 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
18514 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
18515
18516 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
18517 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
18518 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
18519 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
18520
18521 <blockquote><pre>
18522 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
18523 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
18524 </pre></blockquote>
18525
18526 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
18527 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
18528 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
18529 search result is this entry:</p>
18530
18531 <blockquote><pre>
18532 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18533 cn: dhcp
18534 objectClass: top
18535 objectClass: dhcpServer
18536 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18537 </pre></blockquote>
18538
18539 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
18540 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
18541 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
18542 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
18543 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
18544 The search result is this entry:</p>
18545
18546 <blockquote><pre>
18547 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18548 cn: DHCP Config
18549 objectClass: top
18550 objectClass: dhcpService
18551 objectClass: dhcpOptions
18552 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18553 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
18554 dhcpStatements: authoritative
18555 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
18556 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
18557 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
18558 </pre></blockquote>
18559
18560 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
18561 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
18562 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
18563 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
18564 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
18565 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
18566 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
18567 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
18568 related computer objects.</p>
18569
18570 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
18571 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
18572 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
18573 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
18574 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
18575 like:</p>
18576
18577 <blockquote><pre>
18578 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18579 cn: hostname
18580 objectClass: top
18581 objectClass: dhcpHost
18582 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
18583 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
18584 </pre></blockquote>
18585
18586 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
18587 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
18588 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
18589 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
18590 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
18591 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
18592 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
18593 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
18594 structural object class.
18595
18596 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
18597
18598 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
18599 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
18600 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
18601 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
18602 in the configuration.</p>
18603
18604 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
18605 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
18606 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
18607 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
18608 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
18609 structure.</p>
18610
18611 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
18612 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
18613
18614 <blockquote><pre>
18615 ou=services
18616   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
18617     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
18618     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
18619       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
18620         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
18621     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
18622       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
18623         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
18624     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
18625       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
18626 </pre></blockquote>
18627
18628 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
18629 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
18630 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
18631 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
18632
18633 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
18634 like this:</p>
18635
18636 <blockquote><pre>
18637 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18638 dc: hostname
18639 objectClass: top
18640 objectClass: dhcpHost
18641 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
18642 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
18643 associateddomain: hostname.intern
18644 arecord: 10.11.12.13
18645 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
18646 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
18647 </pre></blockquote>
18648
18649 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
18650 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
18651 auxiliary object class.</p>
18652
18653       </div>
18654       <div class="tags">
18655
18656
18657         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>.
18658
18659
18660       </div>
18661     </div>
18662     <div class="padding"></div>
18663
18664     <div class="entry">
18665       <div class="title">
18666         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
18667       </div>
18668       <div class="date">
18669         14th July 2010
18670       </div>
18671       <div class="body">
18672         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
18673 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
18674 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
18675 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
18676 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
18677
18678 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
18679 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
18680
18681 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
18682 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
18683 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
18684 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
18685 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
18686 to a slave DNS server.</p>
18687
18688 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
18689 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
18690 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
18691 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
18692 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
18693 seem to work.</p>
18694
18695 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
18696 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
18697 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
18698 this:</p>
18699
18700 <blockquote><pre>
18701   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
18702   cn: hostname
18703   objectClass: dhcphost
18704   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
18705   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
18706   associateddomain: hostname.intern
18707   arecord: 10.11.12.13
18708   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
18709   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
18710   ldapconfigsound: Y
18711 </pre></blockquote>
18712
18713 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
18714 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
18715 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
18716 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
18717
18718 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
18719 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
18720 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
18721 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
18722 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
18723 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
18724 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
18725 might be a good place to put it.</p>
18726
18727 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
18728 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18729
18730       </div>
18731       <div class="tags">
18732
18733
18734         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>.
18735
18736
18737       </div>
18738     </div>
18739     <div class="padding"></div>
18740
18741     <div class="entry">
18742       <div class="title">
18743         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
18744       </div>
18745       <div class="date">
18746         11th July 2010
18747       </div>
18748       <div class="body">
18749         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
18750 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
18751 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
18752 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
18753
18754 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
18755 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
18756 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
18757 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
18758 LTSP clients.</p>
18759
18760 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
18761 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
18762 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
18763
18764 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
18765 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
18766 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
18767
18768 <blockquote><pre>
18769 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
18770 #
18771 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
18772 #
18773 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
18774 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
18775 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
18776 #
18777 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
18778 # existence of attribute names.
18779 #
18780 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
18781 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
18782 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
18783 #
18784 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
18785 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
18786 #
18787 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
18788 #     SUP top
18789 #     AUXILIARY
18790 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
18791
18792 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
18793 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
18794     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
18795     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
18796         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
18797         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
18798             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
18799             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
18800             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
18801             # bass value on to clients
18802             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
18803         done
18804     done
18805 fi
18806 </pre></blockquote>
18807
18808 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
18809 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
18810 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
18811 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
18812 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
18813
18814 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
18815 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18816
18817 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
18818 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
18819 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
18820 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
18821 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
18822 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
18823
18824       </div>
18825       <div class="tags">
18826
18827
18828         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>.
18829
18830
18831       </div>
18832     </div>
18833     <div class="padding"></div>
18834
18835     <div class="entry">
18836       <div class="title">
18837         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
18838       </div>
18839       <div class="date">
18840          9th July 2010
18841       </div>
18842       <div class="body">
18843         <p>Since
18844 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
18845 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
18846 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
18847 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
18848 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
18849 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
18850 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
18851 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
18852 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
18853 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
18854 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
18855 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
18856 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
18857
18858       </div>
18859       <div class="tags">
18860
18861
18862         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>.
18863
18864
18865       </div>
18866     </div>
18867     <div class="padding"></div>
18868
18869     <div class="entry">
18870       <div class="title">
18871         <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>
18872       </div>
18873       <div class="date">
18874          3rd July 2010
18875       </div>
18876       <div class="body">
18877         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
18878 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
18879 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
18880 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
18881 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
18882 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
18883 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
18884 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
18885
18886 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
18887 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
18888 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
18889 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
18890 publish the difference.</p>
18891
18892 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
18893
18894 <blockquote><p>
18895   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
18896   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
18897   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
18898   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
18899   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
18900   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
18901   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
18902   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
18903 </p></blockquote>
18904
18905 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
18906
18907 <blockquote><p>
18908   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
18909   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
18910   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
18911   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
18912   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
18913   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
18914   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
18915   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
18916   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
18917   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
18918   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
18919   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
18920   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
18921   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
18922   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
18923   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
18924   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
18925   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
18926   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
18927   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
18928 </p></blockquote>
18929
18930 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
18931
18932 <blockquote><p>
18933   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
18934   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
18935   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
18936   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
18937   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
18938   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
18939   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
18940   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
18941   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
18942   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
18943   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
18944   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
18945   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
18946   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
18947   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
18948   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
18949   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
18950   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
18951   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
18952   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
18953   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
18954 </p></blockquote>
18955
18956 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
18957
18958 <blockquote><p>
18959   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
18960   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
18961   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
18962 </p></blockquote>
18963
18964 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
18965 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
18966 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
18967 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
18968 the difference somewhat.
18969
18970       </div>
18971       <div class="tags">
18972
18973
18974         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>.
18975
18976
18977       </div>
18978     </div>
18979     <div class="padding"></div>
18980
18981     <div class="entry">
18982       <div class="title">
18983         <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>
18984       </div>
18985       <div class="date">
18986          1st July 2010
18987       </div>
18988       <div class="body">
18989         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
18990 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
18991 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
18992 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
18993 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
18994 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
18995 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
18996 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
18997 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
18998
18999 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
19000
19001 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
19002 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
19003 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
19004 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
19005 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
19006 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
19007 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
19008 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
19009 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
19010 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
19011 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
19012 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
19013 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
19014 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
19015 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
19016
19017 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
19018
19019 <blockquote><pre>
19020 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
19021 </pre></blockquote>
19022
19023 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
19024 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
19025 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
19026 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
19027 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
19028 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
19029 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
19030 on how to get this working.</p>
19031
19032 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
19033 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
19034 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
19035 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
19036 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
19037 instructions I found in the
19038 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
19039 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
19040
19041 <blockquote><pre>
19042         debug-level             0
19043         reload-count            unlimited
19044         paranoia                no
19045
19046         enable-cache            passwd          yes
19047         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
19048         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
19049         suggested-size          passwd          211
19050         check-files             passwd          yes
19051         persistent              passwd          yes
19052         shared                  passwd          yes
19053         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
19054         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
19055
19056         enable-cache            group           yes
19057         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
19058         negative-time-to-live   group           20
19059         suggested-size          group           211
19060         check-files             group           yes
19061         persistent              group           yes
19062         shared                  group           yes
19063         max-db-size             group           33554432
19064         auto-propagate          group           yes
19065
19066         enable-cache            hosts           no
19067         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
19068         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
19069         suggested-size          hosts           211
19070         check-files             hosts           yes
19071         persistent              hosts           yes
19072         shared                  hosts           yes
19073         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
19074
19075         enable-cache            services        yes
19076         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
19077         negative-time-to-live   services        20
19078         suggested-size          services        211
19079         check-files             services        yes
19080         persistent              services        yes
19081         shared                  services        yes
19082         max-db-size             services        33554432
19083 </pre></blockquote>
19084
19085 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
19086 automatically like the one provided in
19087 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
19088 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
19089 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
19090 look like this:</p>
19091
19092 <blockquote><pre>
19093 passwd:         files ldap
19094 group:          files ldap
19095 shadow:         files ldap
19096 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
19097 networks:       files
19098 protocols:      files
19099 services:       files
19100 ethers:         files
19101 rpc:            files
19102 netgroup:       files ldap
19103 </pre></blockquote>
19104
19105 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
19106 shadow and netgroup.</p>
19107
19108 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
19109 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
19110 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
19111 attributes cached.
19112
19113 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
19114   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
19115
19116 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
19117 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
19118 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
19119 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
19120 discovered sssd.</p>
19121
19122 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
19123
19124 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
19125 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
19126 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
19127 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
19128 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
19129 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
19130 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
19131 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
19132 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
19133 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
19134 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
19135 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
19136 version 1.2 is now in testing.
19137
19138 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
19139 roaming setup I want</p>
19140
19141 <blockquote><pre>
19142 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
19143 </pre></blockquote>
19144
19145 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
19146 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
19147
19148 <blockquote><pre>
19149 [sssd]
19150 config_file_version = 2
19151 reconnection_retries = 3
19152 sbus_timeout = 30
19153 services = nss, pam
19154 domains = INTERN
19155
19156 [nss]
19157 filter_groups = root
19158 filter_users = root
19159 reconnection_retries = 3
19160
19161 [pam]
19162 reconnection_retries = 3
19163
19164 [domain/INTERN]
19165 enumerate = false
19166 cache_credentials = true
19167
19168 id_provider = ldap
19169 auth_provider = ldap
19170 chpass_provider = ldap
19171
19172 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
19173 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
19174 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
19175 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
19176 </pre></blockquote>
19177
19178 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
19179 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
19180
19181 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
19182 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
19183 modify it manually.</p>
19184
19185 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
19186 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
19187
19188       </div>
19189       <div class="tags">
19190
19191
19192         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
19193
19194
19195       </div>
19196     </div>
19197     <div class="padding"></div>
19198
19199     <div class="entry">
19200       <div class="title">
19201         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
19202       </div>
19203       <div class="date">
19204         28th June 2010
19205       </div>
19206       <div class="body">
19207         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
19208 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
19209 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
19210 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
19211 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
19212 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
19213 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
19214 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
19215 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
19216 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
19217
19218 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
19219 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
19220 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
19221 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
19222 released.</p>
19223
19224 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
19225 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
19226 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
19227 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
19228
19229 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
19230 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
19231
19232 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
19233 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
19234 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
19235 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
19236 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
19237
19238       </div>
19239       <div class="tags">
19240
19241
19242         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>.
19243
19244
19245       </div>
19246     </div>
19247     <div class="padding"></div>
19248
19249     <div class="entry">
19250       <div class="title">
19251         <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>
19252       </div>
19253       <div class="date">
19254         24th June 2010
19255       </div>
19256       <div class="body">
19257         <p>A while back, I
19258 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
19259 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
19260 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
19261 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
19262
19263 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
19264 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
19265 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
19266 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
19267
19268 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
19269 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
19270 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
19271 Debian Edu.</p>
19272
19273 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
19274 the
19275 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
19276 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
19277 available today from IETF.</p>
19278
19279 <pre>
19280 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
19281 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
19282 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
19283  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
19284         NAME 'dhcpHost'
19285         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
19286 -       SUP top
19287 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
19288         MUST cn
19289         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
19290         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
19291 </pre>
19292
19293 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
19294 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
19295 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
19296
19297 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
19298 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
19299
19300       </div>
19301       <div class="tags">
19302
19303
19304         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>.
19305
19306
19307       </div>
19308     </div>
19309     <div class="padding"></div>
19310
19311     <div class="entry">
19312       <div class="title">
19313         <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>
19314       </div>
19315       <div class="date">
19316         16th June 2010
19317       </div>
19318       <div class="body">
19319         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
19320 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
19321 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
19322 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
19323 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
19324 this:
19325
19326 <blockquote><pre>
19327 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
19328 tasksel --new-install
19329 </pre></blockquote>
19330
19331 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
19332 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
19333 any output what so ever.
19334
19335 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
19336 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
19337 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
19338 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
19339 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
19340 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
19341 code like this:
19342
19343 <blockquote><pre>
19344 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
19345 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
19346 $cmd
19347 </pre></blockquote>
19348
19349 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
19350 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
19351 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
19352 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
19353 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
19354 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
19355 installation.</p>
19356
19357 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
19358 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
19359 like this.</p>
19360
19361       </div>
19362       <div class="tags">
19363
19364
19365         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>.
19366
19367
19368       </div>
19369     </div>
19370     <div class="padding"></div>
19371
19372     <div class="entry">
19373       <div class="title">
19374         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
19375       </div>
19376       <div class="date">
19377         13th June 2010
19378       </div>
19379       <div class="body">
19380         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
19381 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
19382 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
19383 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
19384 pages.</p>
19385
19386 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
19387 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
19388 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
19389 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
19390 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
19391 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
19392 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
19393 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
19394 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
19395 see how the project is doing.</p>
19396
19397 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
19398 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
19399 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
19400 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
19401 Windows.  This is great.</p>
19402
19403       </div>
19404       <div class="tags">
19405
19406
19407         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>.
19408
19409
19410       </div>
19411     </div>
19412     <div class="padding"></div>
19413
19414     <div class="entry">
19415       <div class="title">
19416         <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>
19417       </div>
19418       <div class="date">
19419         13th June 2010
19420       </div>
19421       <div class="body">
19422         <p>My
19423 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
19424 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
19425 finally made the upgrade logs available from
19426 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
19427 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
19428 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
19429 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
19430
19431 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
19432 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
19433 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
19434 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
19435 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
19436 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
19437 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
19438 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
19439
19440 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
19441 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
19442 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
19443 too surprising.</p>
19444
19445 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
19446 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
19447 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
19448 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
19449 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
19450 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
19451 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
19452 continue.</p>
19453
19454 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
19455 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
19456   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
19457   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
19458   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
19459   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
19460   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
19461   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
19462   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
19463   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
19464   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
19465   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
19466   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
19467   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
19468   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
19469   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
19470   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
19471   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
19472   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
19473   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
19474   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
19475   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
19476   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
19477   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
19478   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
19479   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
19480   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
19481   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
19482   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
19483   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
19484
19485 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
19486
19487 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
19488   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
19489   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
19490   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
19491   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
19492   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
19493   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
19494   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
19495   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
19496   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
19497   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
19498   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
19499   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
19500   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
19501   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
19502   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
19503   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
19504   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
19505   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
19506   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
19507   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
19508   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
19509   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
19510   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
19511   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
19512   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
19513   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
19514   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
19515   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
19516   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
19517   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
19518   zip</p>
19519
19520 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
19521
19522 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
19523   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
19524   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
19525   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
19526   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
19527   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
19528   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
19529   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
19530   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
19531   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
19532   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
19533   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
19534   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
19535   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
19536   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
19537   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
19538   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
19539   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
19540   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
19541   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
19542   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
19543   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
19544   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
19545   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
19546   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
19547   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
19548   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
19549   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
19550
19551 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
19552 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
19553   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
19554   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
19555   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
19556   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
19557   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
19558   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
19559   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
19560   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
19561   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
19562   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
19563   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
19564   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
19565   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
19566   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
19567   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
19568   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
19569   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
19570   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
19571   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
19572   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
19573   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
19574   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
19575   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
19576   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
19577   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
19578   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
19579   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
19580   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
19581   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
19582   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
19583   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
19584   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
19585   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
19586   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
19587   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
19588   xulrunner-1.9</p>
19589
19590
19591       </div>
19592       <div class="tags">
19593
19594
19595         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>.
19596
19597
19598       </div>
19599     </div>
19600     <div class="padding"></div>
19601
19602     <div class="entry">
19603       <div class="title">
19604         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
19605       </div>
19606       <div class="date">
19607         11th June 2010
19608       </div>
19609       <div class="body">
19610         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
19611 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
19612 have been discovered and reported in the process
19613 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
19614 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
19615 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
19616 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
19617 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
19618
19619 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
19620 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
19621 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
19622 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
19623 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
19624 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
19625
19626 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
19627 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
19628 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
19629 is created.  The bug report
19630 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
19631 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
19632 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
19633 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
19634 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
19635 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
19636 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
19637 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
19638 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
19639 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
19640 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
19641 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
19642 Debian Squeeze.</p>
19643
19644 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
19645 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
19646 trick:</p>
19647
19648 <blockquote><pre>
19649 #!/bin/sh
19650 set -ex
19651
19652 if [ "$1" ] ; then
19653     desktop=$1
19654 else
19655     desktop=gnome
19656 fi
19657
19658 from=lenny
19659 to=squeeze
19660
19661 exec &lt; /dev/null
19662 unset LANG
19663 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
19664 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
19665 fuser -mv .
19666 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
19667 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
19668 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
19669 #!/bin/sh
19670 exit 101
19671 EOF
19672 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
19673 exit_cleanup() {
19674     umount $tmpdir/proc
19675 }
19676 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
19677 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
19678 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
19679
19680 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
19681
19682 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
19683 # to return the correct answers.
19684 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
19685     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
19686
19687 # Include the desktop and laptop task
19688 for test in desktop laptop ; do
19689     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
19690 #!/bin/sh
19691 exit 2
19692 EOF
19693     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
19694 done
19695
19696 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
19697 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
19698 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
19699 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
19700
19701 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
19702 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
19703 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
19704 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
19705 fuser -mv
19706 </pre></blockquote>
19707
19708 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
19709 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
19710 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
19711 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
19712 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
19713 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
19714
19715 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
19716 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
19717 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
19718 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
19719 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
19720 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
19721 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
19722
19723 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
19724 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
19725 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
19726 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
19727 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
19728 packages.</p>
19729
19730       </div>
19731       <div class="tags">
19732
19733
19734         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>.
19735
19736
19737       </div>
19738     </div>
19739     <div class="padding"></div>
19740
19741     <div class="entry">
19742       <div class="title">
19743         <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>
19744       </div>
19745       <div class="date">
19746          6th June 2010
19747       </div>
19748       <div class="body">
19749         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
19750 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
19751 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
19752 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
19753 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
19754 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
19755 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
19756
19757 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
19758 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
19759 COLUMNS):</p>
19760
19761 <blockquote><pre>
19762 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
19763 previous=N
19764 PREVLEVEL=
19765 RUNLEVEL=
19766 runlevel=S
19767 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
19768 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
19769 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
19770 </pre></blockquote>
19771
19772 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
19773 script.</p>
19774
19775 <blockquote><pre>
19776 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
19777 previous=N
19778 PREVLEVEL=N
19779 RUNLEVEL=S
19780 runlevel=S
19781 </pre></blockquote>
19782
19783 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
19784 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
19785 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
19786
19787 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
19788 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
19789 choice.</p>
19790
19791       </div>
19792       <div class="tags">
19793
19794
19795         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>.
19796
19797
19798       </div>
19799     </div>
19800     <div class="padding"></div>
19801
19802     <div class="entry">
19803       <div class="title">
19804         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
19805       </div>
19806       <div class="date">
19807          6th June 2010
19808       </div>
19809       <div class="body">
19810         <p>Via the
19811 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
19812 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
19813 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
19814 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
19815 following the standards wars of today.</p>
19816
19817       </div>
19818       <div class="tags">
19819
19820
19821         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>.
19822
19823
19824       </div>
19825     </div>
19826     <div class="padding"></div>
19827
19828     <div class="entry">
19829       <div class="title">
19830         <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>
19831       </div>
19832       <div class="date">
19833          3rd June 2010
19834       </div>
19835       <div class="body">
19836         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
19837 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
19838 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
19839 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
19840 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
19841
19842 <blockquote><pre>
19843 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
19844   vendor                    count
19845   Dell Computer Corporation     1
19846     PowerEdge 1750              1
19847   IBM                           1
19848     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
19849   Intel                         2
19850   [no-dmi-info]                 3
19851 maintainer:~#
19852 </pre></blockquote>
19853
19854 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
19855 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
19856 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
19857 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
19858 option to list the individual machines.</p>
19859
19860 <p>A larger list is
19861 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
19862 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
19863 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
19864 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
19865 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
19866 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
19867 collector.</p>
19868
19869       </div>
19870       <div class="tags">
19871
19872
19873         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>.
19874
19875
19876       </div>
19877     </div>
19878     <div class="padding"></div>
19879
19880     <div class="entry">
19881       <div class="title">
19882         <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>
19883       </div>
19884       <div class="date">
19885          1st June 2010
19886       </div>
19887       <div class="body">
19888         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
19889 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
19890 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
19891 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
19892 wait.</p>
19893
19894 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
19895 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
19896 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
19897 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
19898 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
19899 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
19900
19901 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
19902 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
19903 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
19904 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
19905 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
19906 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
19907 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
19908 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
19909
19910 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
19911
19912       </div>
19913       <div class="tags">
19914
19915
19916         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>.
19917
19918
19919       </div>
19920     </div>
19921     <div class="padding"></div>
19922
19923     <div class="entry">
19924       <div class="title">
19925         <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>
19926       </div>
19927       <div class="date">
19928         27th May 2010
19929       </div>
19930       <div class="body">
19931         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
19932 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
19933 issues are known and should be solved:
19934
19935 <p><ul>
19936
19937 <li>The wicd package seen to
19938 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
19939 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
19940 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
19941 seem to be on the case.</li>
19942
19943 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
19944 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
19945 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
19946 maintainer is on the case.</li>
19947
19948 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
19949 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
19950 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
19951 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
19952 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
19953 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
19954 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
19955 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
19956
19957 </ul></p>
19958
19959 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
19960 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
19961 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
19962 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
19963
19964 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
19965 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
19966 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
19967 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
19968
19969 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
19970
19971       </div>
19972       <div class="tags">
19973
19974
19975         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>.
19976
19977
19978       </div>
19979     </div>
19980     <div class="padding"></div>
19981
19982     <div class="entry">
19983       <div class="title">
19984         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
19985       </div>
19986       <div class="date">
19987         22nd May 2010
19988       </div>
19989       <div class="body">
19990         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
19991 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
19992 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
19993 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
19994
19995 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
19996 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
19997 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
19998 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
19999 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
20000 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
20001 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
20002 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
20003 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
20004 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
20005 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
20006 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
20007 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
20008 going to work.</p>
20009
20010 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
20011 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
20012 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
20013 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
20014 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
20015 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
20016 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
20017 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
20018 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
20019 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
20020 Edu.</p>
20021
20022 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
20023 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
20024 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
20025 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
20026 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
20027 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
20028
20029 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
20030 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
20031
20032       </div>
20033       <div class="tags">
20034
20035
20036         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>.
20037
20038
20039       </div>
20040     </div>
20041     <div class="padding"></div>
20042
20043     <div class="entry">
20044       <div class="title">
20045         <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>
20046       </div>
20047       <div class="date">
20048         19th May 2010
20049       </div>
20050       <div class="body">
20051         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
20052 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
20053 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
20054 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
20055 into unstable.  The
20056 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
20057 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
20058 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
20059 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
20060 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
20061 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
20062 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
20063
20064 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
20065 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
20066 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
20067 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
20068 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
20069 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
20070 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
20071 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
20072
20073 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
20074 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
20075 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
20076 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
20077 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
20078 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
20079 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
20080
20081 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
20082 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
20083 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
20084 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
20085 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
20086 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
20087 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
20088 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
20089 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
20090 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
20091 on the home directory servers.</p>
20092
20093 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
20094 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
20095 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
20096 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
20097 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
20098 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
20099
20100 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
20101 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
20102
20103       </div>
20104       <div class="tags">
20105
20106
20107         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
20108
20109
20110       </div>
20111     </div>
20112     <div class="padding"></div>
20113
20114     <div class="entry">
20115       <div class="title">
20116         <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>
20117       </div>
20118       <div class="date">
20119         14th May 2010
20120       </div>
20121       <div class="body">
20122         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
20123 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
20124 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
20125 expected, if I am to believe the
20126 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
20127 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
20128 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
20129 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
20130 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
20131 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
20132 version.</p>
20133
20134 More information about
20135 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
20136 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
20137 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
20138 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
20139
20140 <blockquote><pre>
20141 CONCURRENCY=none
20142 </pre></blockquote>
20143
20144 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
20145 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
20146 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
20147 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
20148
20149       </div>
20150       <div class="tags">
20151
20152
20153         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>.
20154
20155
20156       </div>
20157     </div>
20158     <div class="padding"></div>
20159
20160     <div class="entry">
20161       <div class="title">
20162         <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>
20163       </div>
20164       <div class="date">
20165         14th May 2010
20166       </div>
20167       <div class="body">
20168         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
20169 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
20170 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
20171 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
20172 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
20173 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
20174 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
20175 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
20176
20177 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
20178 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
20179 this on the collector host:</p>
20180
20181 <blockquote><pre>
20182 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
20183 </pre></blockquote>
20184
20185 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
20186 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
20187
20188 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
20189 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
20190 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
20191 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
20192 written yet.</p>
20193
20194       </div>
20195       <div class="tags">
20196
20197
20198         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>.
20199
20200
20201       </div>
20202     </div>
20203     <div class="padding"></div>
20204
20205     <div class="entry">
20206       <div class="title">
20207         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
20208       </div>
20209       <div class="date">
20210         13th May 2010
20211       </div>
20212       <div class="body">
20213         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
20214 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
20215 has been
20216 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
20217
20218 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
20219 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
20220 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
20221 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
20222 based boot system.  Tollef is
20223 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
20224 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
20225 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
20226 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
20227 at the moment do not.</p>
20228
20229 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
20230 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
20231 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
20232 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
20233 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
20234 way forward.</p>
20235
20236 <p>In the mean time, based on the
20237 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
20238 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
20239 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
20240 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
20241 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
20242 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
20243 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
20244 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
20245
20246       </div>
20247       <div class="tags">
20248
20249
20250         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>.
20251
20252
20253       </div>
20254     </div>
20255     <div class="padding"></div>
20256
20257     <div class="entry">
20258       <div class="title">
20259         <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>
20260       </div>
20261       <div class="date">
20262          6th May 2010
20263       </div>
20264       <div class="body">
20265         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
20266 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
20267 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
20268 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
20269 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
20270 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
20271 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
20272
20273 <blockquote><pre>
20274 CONCURRENCY=makefile
20275 </pre></blockquote>
20276
20277 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
20278 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
20279 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
20280 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
20281 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
20282 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
20283 make this happen.</p>
20284
20285 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
20286 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
20287 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
20288 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
20289 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
20290
20291 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
20292 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
20293 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
20294 fix the remaining issues.</p>
20295
20296 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
20297 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
20298 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
20299 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
20300
20301       </div>
20302       <div class="tags">
20303
20304
20305         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>.
20306
20307
20308       </div>
20309     </div>
20310     <div class="padding"></div>
20311
20312     <div class="entry">
20313       <div class="title">
20314         <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>
20315       </div>
20316       <div class="date">
20317          2nd May 2010
20318       </div>
20319       <div class="body">
20320         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
20321 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
20322 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
20323
20324 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
20325 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
20326 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
20327 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
20328 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
20329
20330 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
20331 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
20332
20333 <blockquote><pre>
20334 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
20335 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
20336 Password expires                                        : never
20337 Password inactive                                       : never
20338 Account expires                                         : never
20339 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
20340 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
20341 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
20342 root@tjener:~#
20343 </pre></blockquote>
20344
20345 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
20346 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
20347 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
20348 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
20349 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
20350 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
20351
20352 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
20353 intended:</p>
20354
20355 <blockquote><pre>
20356 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
20357 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
20358 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
20359 Password expires                                        : never
20360 Password inactive                                       : never
20361 Account expires                                         : never
20362 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
20363 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
20364 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
20365 root@tjener:~#
20366 </pre></blockquote>
20367
20368 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
20369 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
20370 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
20371
20372 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
20373 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
20374
20375 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
20376 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
20377
20378 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
20379 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
20380 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
20381 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
20382 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
20383 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
20384 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
20385
20386 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
20387 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
20388 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
20389 change.</p>
20390
20391       </div>
20392       <div class="tags">
20393
20394
20395         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
20396
20397
20398       </div>
20399     </div>
20400     <div class="padding"></div>
20401
20402     <div class="entry">
20403       <div class="title">
20404         <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>
20405       </div>
20406       <div class="date">
20407         28th April 2010
20408       </div>
20409       <div class="body">
20410         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
20411 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
20412 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
20413 and go.</p>
20414
20415 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
20416 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
20417 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
20418 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
20419
20420 <ul>
20421
20422  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
20423    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
20424    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
20425    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
20426    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
20427    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
20428    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
20429    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
20430    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
20431    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
20432    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
20433    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
20434
20435  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
20436    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
20437    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
20438    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
20439    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
20440    or the Fedora developed
20441    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
20442    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
20443
20444  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
20445    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
20446    directory, using unison.</li>
20447
20448  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
20449    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
20450    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
20451    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
20452    implemented.</li>
20453
20454  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
20455    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
20456
20457  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
20458    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
20459    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
20460
20461 </ul>
20462
20463 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
20464 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
20465 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
20466 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
20467 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
20468 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
20469 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
20470 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
20471 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
20472
20473 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
20474 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
20475
20476       </div>
20477       <div class="tags">
20478
20479
20480         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
20481
20482
20483       </div>
20484     </div>
20485     <div class="padding"></div>
20486
20487     <div class="entry">
20488       <div class="title">
20489         <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>
20490       </div>
20491       <div class="date">
20492         19th April 2010
20493       </div>
20494       <div class="body">
20495         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
20496 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
20497 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
20498 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
20499 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
20500 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
20501 restrictions on the web, for example from
20502 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
20503 epub-version from
20504 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
20505 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
20506 strongly recommend this book.</p>
20507
20508       </div>
20509       <div class="tags">
20510
20511
20512         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>.
20513
20514
20515       </div>
20516     </div>
20517     <div class="padding"></div>
20518
20519     <div class="entry">
20520       <div class="title">
20521         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
20522       </div>
20523       <div class="date">
20524         14th April 2010
20525       </div>
20526       <div class="body">
20527         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
20528 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
20529 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
20530 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
20531 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
20532 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
20533 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
20534 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
20535 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
20536
20537 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
20538 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
20539 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
20540 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
20541 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
20542
20543 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
20544 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
20545
20546 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
20547 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
20548 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
20549 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
20550 to work properly.</p>
20551
20552 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
20553 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
20554 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
20555 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
20556 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
20557 time.</p>
20558
20559 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
20560 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
20561 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
20562 up in a few days.</p>
20563
20564       </div>
20565       <div class="tags">
20566
20567
20568         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
20569
20570
20571       </div>
20572     </div>
20573     <div class="padding"></div>
20574
20575     <div class="entry">
20576       <div class="title">
20577         <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>
20578       </div>
20579       <div class="date">
20580          6th March 2010
20581       </div>
20582       <div class="body">
20583         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
20584 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
20585 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
20586 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
20587 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
20588 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
20589
20590 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
20591 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
20592 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
20593 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
20594
20595 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
20596 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
20597 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
20598 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
20599 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
20600 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
20601
20602       </div>
20603       <div class="tags">
20604
20605
20606         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
20607
20608
20609       </div>
20610     </div>
20611     <div class="padding"></div>
20612
20613     <div class="entry">
20614       <div class="title">
20615         <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>
20616       </div>
20617       <div class="date">
20618         11th February 2010
20619       </div>
20620       <div class="body">
20621         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
20622 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
20623 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
20624 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
20625 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
20626 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
20627 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
20628
20629 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
20630
20631 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
20632 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
20633 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
20634 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
20635
20636       </div>
20637       <div class="tags">
20638
20639
20640         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
20641
20642
20643       </div>
20644     </div>
20645     <div class="padding"></div>
20646
20647     <div class="entry">
20648       <div class="title">
20649         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
20650       </div>
20651       <div class="date">
20652         27th January 2010
20653       </div>
20654       <div class="body">
20655         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
20656 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
20657 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
20658 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
20659 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
20660 further.</p>
20661
20662 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
20663 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
20664 configured to be a server for the
20665 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
20666 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
20667 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
20668 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
20669 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
20670 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
20671 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
20672 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
20673 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
20674 and Nagios configuration.</p>
20675
20676 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
20677 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
20678 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
20679 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
20680
20681 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
20682 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
20683 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
20684 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
20685 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
20686 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
20687 the machine.</p>
20688
20689 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
20690 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
20691 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
20692 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
20693
20694 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
20695 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
20696 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
20697 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
20698 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
20699 everything is taken care of.</p>
20700
20701       </div>
20702       <div class="tags">
20703
20704
20705         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
20706
20707
20708       </div>
20709     </div>
20710     <div class="padding"></div>
20711
20712     <div class="entry">
20713       <div class="title">
20714         <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>
20715       </div>
20716       <div class="date">
20717         12th August 2009
20718       </div>
20719       <div class="body">
20720         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
20721 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
20722 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
20723 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
20724
20725 <table>
20726 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
20727 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
20728 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
20729 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
20730 </table>
20731
20732 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
20733 got these numbers:</p>
20734
20735 <table>
20736 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
20737 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
20738 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
20739 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
20740 </table>
20741
20742 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
20743
20744 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
20745 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
20746 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
20747 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
20748 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
20749
20750
20751 <table>
20752 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
20753 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
20754 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
20755 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
20756 </table>
20757
20758 <p>And with 'site:no':
20759
20760 <table>
20761 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
20762 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
20763 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
20764 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
20765 </table>
20766
20767 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
20768 numbers.</p>
20769
20770       </div>
20771       <div class="tags">
20772
20773
20774         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>.
20775
20776
20777       </div>
20778     </div>
20779     <div class="padding"></div>
20780
20781     <div class="entry">
20782       <div class="title">
20783         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
20784       </div>
20785       <div class="date">
20786          8th August 2009
20787       </div>
20788       <div class="body">
20789         <p>According to <a
20790 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
20791 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
20792 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
20793 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
20794 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
20795 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
20796 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
20797 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
20798 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
20799 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
20800
20801 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
20802 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
20803 seminar this autumn.</p>
20804
20805       </div>
20806       <div class="tags">
20807
20808
20809         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>.
20810
20811
20812       </div>
20813     </div>
20814     <div class="padding"></div>
20815
20816     <div class="entry">
20817       <div class="title">
20818         <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>
20819       </div>
20820       <div class="date">
20821         27th July 2009
20822       </div>
20823       <div class="body">
20824         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
20825 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
20826 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
20827 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
20828 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
20829 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
20830 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
20831
20832 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
20833 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
20834 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
20835
20836       </div>
20837       <div class="tags">
20838
20839
20840         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>.
20841
20842
20843       </div>
20844     </div>
20845     <div class="padding"></div>
20846
20847     <div class="entry">
20848       <div class="title">
20849         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
20850       </div>
20851       <div class="date">
20852         22nd July 2009
20853       </div>
20854       <div class="body">
20855         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
20856 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
20857 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
20858 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
20859 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
20860 the package up to date.</p>
20861
20862 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
20863 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
20864 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
20865 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
20866 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
20867 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
20868 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
20869 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
20870 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
20871 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
20872 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
20873 working on the future release.</p>
20874
20875 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
20876 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
20877
20878       </div>
20879       <div class="tags">
20880
20881
20882         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>.
20883
20884
20885       </div>
20886     </div>
20887     <div class="padding"></div>
20888
20889     <div class="entry">
20890       <div class="title">
20891         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
20892       </div>
20893       <div class="date">
20894         24th June 2009
20895       </div>
20896       <div class="body">
20897         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
20898 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
20899 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
20900 funded
20901 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
20902 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
20903 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
20904 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
20905 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
20906 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
20907
20908 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
20909 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
20910 boot:</p>
20911
20912 <ul>
20913
20914 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
20915
20916 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
20917    clock is in UTC.</li>
20918
20919 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
20920    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
20921    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
20922
20923 </ul>
20924
20925 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
20926 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
20927 Villegas</a>.
20928
20929 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
20930 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
20931 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
20932 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
20933 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
20934 using this.</p>
20935
20936 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
20937 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
20938 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
20939 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
20940 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
20941 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
20942 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
20943
20944       </div>
20945       <div class="tags">
20946
20947
20948         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>.
20949
20950
20951       </div>
20952     </div>
20953     <div class="padding"></div>
20954
20955     <div class="entry">
20956       <div class="title">
20957         <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>
20958       </div>
20959       <div class="date">
20960          2nd May 2009
20961       </div>
20962       <div class="body">
20963         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
20964 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
20965 do not yet know them.</p>
20966
20967 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
20968 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
20969 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
20970 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
20971 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
20972 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
20973 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
20974 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
20975 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
20976 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
20977 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
20978
20979 <p>The second one is
20980 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
20981 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
20982 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
20983 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
20984 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
20985 and the company behind it is running
20986 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
20987 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
20988 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
20989 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
20990 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
20991 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
20992 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
20993 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
20994
20995 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
20996 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
20997 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
20998 surrounded by today.</p>
20999
21000       </div>
21001       <div class="tags">
21002
21003
21004         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>.
21005
21006
21007       </div>
21008     </div>
21009     <div class="padding"></div>
21010
21011     <div class="entry">
21012       <div class="title">
21013         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html">No patch is not better than a useless patch</a>
21014       </div>
21015       <div class="date">
21016         28th April 2009
21017       </div>
21018       <div class="body">
21019         <p>Julien Blache
21020 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
21021 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
21022 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
21023 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
21024 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
21025 properties.</p>
21026
21027       </div>
21028       <div class="tags">
21029
21030
21031         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>.
21032
21033
21034       </div>
21035     </div>
21036     <div class="padding"></div>
21037
21038     <div class="entry">
21039       <div class="title">
21040         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
21041       </div>
21042       <div class="date">
21043          5th April 2009
21044       </div>
21045       <div class="body">
21046         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
21047 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
21048 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
21049 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
21050 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
21051 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
21052 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
21053 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
21054
21055 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
21056 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
21057 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
21058   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
21059   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
21060
21061 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
21062 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
21063 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
21064 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
21065
21066 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
21067 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
21068 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
21069 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
21070
21071 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
21072 set -e
21073 URL="$1"
21074 SAVEFILE="$2"
21075 DURATION="$3"
21076 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
21077   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
21078   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
21079 pid=$!
21080 sleep $DURATION
21081 kill $pid
21082 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
21083
21084       </div>
21085       <div class="tags">
21086
21087
21088         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>.
21089
21090
21091       </div>
21092     </div>
21093     <div class="padding"></div>
21094
21095     <div class="entry">
21096       <div class="title">
21097         <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>
21098       </div>
21099       <div class="date">
21100         30th March 2009
21101       </div>
21102       <div class="body">
21103         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
21104 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
21105 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
21106 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
21107 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
21108 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
21109 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
21110 application.</p>
21111
21112 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
21113 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
21114 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
21115 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
21116 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
21117 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
21118 blocked from doing so.</p>
21119
21120 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
21121 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
21122 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
21123 requirements change.</p>
21124
21125 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
21126 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
21127 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
21128
21129       </div>
21130       <div class="tags">
21131
21132
21133         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>.
21134
21135
21136       </div>
21137     </div>
21138     <div class="padding"></div>
21139
21140     <div class="entry">
21141       <div class="title">
21142         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
21143       </div>
21144       <div class="date">
21145         29th March 2009
21146       </div>
21147       <div class="body">
21148         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
21149 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
21150 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
21151 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
21152 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
21153 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
21154 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
21155 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
21156 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
21157 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
21158 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
21159 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
21160 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
21161 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
21162 now. :)</p>
21163
21164       </div>
21165       <div class="tags">
21166
21167
21168         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>.
21169
21170
21171       </div>
21172     </div>
21173     <div class="padding"></div>
21174
21175     <div class="entry">
21176       <div class="title">
21177         <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>
21178       </div>
21179       <div class="date">
21180         29th March 2009
21181       </div>
21182       <div class="body">
21183         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
21184 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
21185 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
21186 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
21187 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
21188 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
21189
21190 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
21191 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
21192 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
21193 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
21194 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
21195 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
21196 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
21197 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
21198 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
21199 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
21200 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
21201 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
21202 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
21203
21204 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
21205 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
21206 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
21207 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
21208
21209 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
21210 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
21211
21212 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
21213 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
21214 new IETF work group?</p>
21215
21216       </div>
21217       <div class="tags">
21218
21219
21220         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>.
21221
21222
21223       </div>
21224     </div>
21225     <div class="padding"></div>
21226
21227     <div class="entry">
21228       <div class="title">
21229         <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>
21230       </div>
21231       <div class="date">
21232         28th February 2009
21233       </div>
21234       <div class="body">
21235         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
21236 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
21237 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
21238 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
21239 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
21240 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
21241 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
21242 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
21243 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
21244 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
21245 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
21246 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
21247 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
21248 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
21249 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
21250 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
21251 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
21252 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
21253 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
21254 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
21255 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
21256 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
21257 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
21258 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
21259 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
21260 machine.</p>
21261
21262 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
21263 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
21264 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
21265 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
21266 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
21267 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
21268 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
21269
21270 <pre>
21271 use LWP::Simple;
21272 use POSIX;
21273 use WWW::Mechanize;
21274 use Date::Parse;
21275 [...]
21276 sub get_support_info {
21277     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
21278     my $str;
21279
21280     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
21281         # fetch website from Dell support
21282         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";
21283         my $webpage = get($url);
21284         return undef unless ($webpage);
21285
21286         my $daysleft = -1;
21287         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
21288         foreach my $line (@lines) {
21289             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
21290             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
21291             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
21292
21293             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
21294             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
21295             my $lastend = "";
21296             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
21297                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
21298
21299                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
21300                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
21301                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
21302                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
21303                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
21304                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
21305                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
21306             }
21307             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
21308             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
21309                 if ($lastend lt $today);
21310         }
21311     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
21312         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
21313         my $url =
21314             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
21315         $mech->get($url);
21316         my $fields = {
21317             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
21318             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
21319             'country' => 'NO',
21320             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
21321             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
21322         };
21323         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
21324                             fields      => $fields );
21325         # Next step is screen scraping
21326         my $content = $mech->content();
21327
21328         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
21329         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
21330         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
21331         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
21332
21333         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
21334
21335         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
21336             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
21337                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
21338             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
21339             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
21340                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
21341             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
21342                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
21343
21344             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
21345
21346             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
21347                 if ($end lt $today);
21348         }
21349     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
21350         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
21351         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
21352         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
21353             my $content =
21354                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
21355             if ($content) {
21356                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
21357                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
21358                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
21359                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
21360
21361                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
21362                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
21363
21364                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
21365
21366                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
21367                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
21368                     if ($end lt $today);
21369             }
21370         }
21371     }
21372     return $str;
21373 }
21374 </pre>
21375
21376 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
21377 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
21378 from dmidecode.</p>
21379
21380 <pre>
21381 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
21382                        "447707-B21");
21383 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
21384 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
21385                        "1234567");
21386 </pre>
21387
21388 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
21389 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
21390
21391 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
21392 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
21393 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
21394 do so.</p>
21395
21396       </div>
21397       <div class="tags">
21398
21399
21400         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>.
21401
21402
21403       </div>
21404     </div>
21405     <div class="padding"></div>
21406
21407     <div class="entry">
21408       <div class="title">
21409         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
21410       </div>
21411       <div class="date">
21412         20th February 2009
21413       </div>
21414       <div class="body">
21415         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
21416 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
21417 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
21418 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
21419 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
21420 the "missing" computer.</p>
21421
21422 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
21423 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
21424 code blocks as defined in the
21425 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
21426 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
21427 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
21428 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
21429 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
21430 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
21431 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
21432 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
21433 codes.</p>
21434
21435 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
21436 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
21437 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
21438 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
21439 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
21440 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
21441
21442 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
21443 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
21444 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
21445 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
21446 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
21447 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
21448 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
21449 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
21450 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
21451 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
21452
21453 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
21454 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
21455 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
21456
21457       </div>
21458       <div class="tags">
21459
21460
21461         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>.
21462
21463
21464       </div>
21465     </div>
21466     <div class="padding"></div>
21467
21468     <div class="entry">
21469       <div class="title">
21470         <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>
21471       </div>
21472       <div class="date">
21473         17th January 2009
21474       </div>
21475       <div class="body">
21476         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
21477 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
21478 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
21479 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
21480 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
21481 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
21482 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
21483 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
21484 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
21485 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
21486 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
21487 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
21488 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
21489 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
21490
21491 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
21492 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
21493 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
21494 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
21495 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
21496 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
21497 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
21498 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
21499 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
21500 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
21501 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
21502 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
21503 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
21504 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
21505 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
21506 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
21507 playing when the download is done.</p>
21508
21509 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
21510 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
21511 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
21512 too.</p>
21513
21514 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
21515 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
21516 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
21517 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
21518
21519       </div>
21520       <div class="tags">
21521
21522
21523         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>.
21524
21525
21526       </div>
21527     </div>
21528     <div class="padding"></div>
21529
21530     <div class="entry">
21531       <div class="title">
21532         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
21533       </div>
21534       <div class="date">
21535         28th December 2008
21536       </div>
21537       <div class="body">
21538         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
21539 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
21540 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
21541 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
21542 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
21543 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
21544 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
21545 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
21546 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
21547 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
21548 source, sink and mixer applications and
21549 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
21550 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
21551 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
21552 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
21553 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
21554 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
21555 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
21556 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
21557 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
21558
21559 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
21560 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
21561 larger stick as well.</p>
21562
21563       </div>
21564       <div class="tags">
21565
21566
21567         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>.
21568
21569
21570       </div>
21571     </div>
21572     <div class="padding"></div>
21573
21574     <div class="entry">
21575       <div class="title">
21576         <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>
21577       </div>
21578       <div class="date">
21579          7th December 2008
21580       </div>
21581       <div class="body">
21582         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
21583 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
21584 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
21585 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
21586 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
21587 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
21588 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
21589 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
21590
21591 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
21592 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
21593 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
21594 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
21595 of these cards.</p>
21596
21597       </div>
21598       <div class="tags">
21599
21600
21601         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>.
21602
21603
21604       </div>
21605     </div>
21606     <div class="padding"></div>
21607
21608     <div class="entry">
21609       <div class="title">
21610         <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>
21611       </div>
21612       <div class="date">
21613         25th November 2008
21614       </div>
21615       <div class="body">
21616         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
21617 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
21618 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
21619 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
21620 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
21621 notes are available on
21622 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
21623 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
21624 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
21625 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
21626 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
21627 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
21628 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
21629 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
21630 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
21631
21632 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
21633 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
21634
21635       </div>
21636       <div class="tags">
21637
21638
21639         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>.
21640
21641
21642       </div>
21643     </div>
21644     <div class="padding"></div>
21645
21646     <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>
21647     <div id="sidebar">
21648
21649
21650
21651 <h2>Archive</h2>
21652 <ul>
21653
21654 <li>2015
21655 <ul>
21656
21657 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (3)</a></li>
21658
21659 </ul></li>
21660
21661 <li>2014
21662 <ul>
21663
21664 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
21665
21666 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
21667
21668 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
21669
21670 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
21671
21672 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
21673
21674 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
21675
21676 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
21677
21678 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
21679
21680 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
21681
21682 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
21683
21684 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
21685
21686 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
21687
21688 </ul></li>
21689
21690 <li>2013
21691 <ul>
21692
21693 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
21694
21695 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
21696
21697 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
21698
21699 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
21700
21701 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
21702
21703 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
21704
21705 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
21706
21707 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
21708
21709 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
21710
21711 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
21712
21713 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
21714
21715 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
21716
21717 </ul></li>
21718
21719 <li>2012
21720 <ul>
21721
21722 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
21723
21724 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
21725
21726 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
21727
21728 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
21729
21730 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
21731
21732 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
21733
21734 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
21735
21736 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
21737
21738 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
21739
21740 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
21741
21742 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
21743
21744 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
21745
21746 </ul></li>
21747
21748 <li>2011
21749 <ul>
21750
21751 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
21752
21753 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
21754
21755 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
21756
21757 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
21758
21759 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
21760
21761 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
21762
21763 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
21764
21765 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
21766
21767 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
21768
21769 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
21770
21771 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
21772
21773 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
21774
21775 </ul></li>
21776
21777 <li>2010
21778 <ul>
21779
21780 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
21781
21782 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
21783
21784 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
21785
21786 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
21787
21788 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
21789
21790 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
21791
21792 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
21793
21794 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
21795
21796 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
21797
21798 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
21799
21800 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
21801
21802 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
21803
21804 </ul></li>
21805
21806 <li>2009
21807 <ul>
21808
21809 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
21810
21811 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
21812
21813 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
21814
21815 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
21816
21817 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
21818
21819 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
21820
21821 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
21822
21823 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
21824
21825 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
21826
21827 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
21828
21829 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
21830
21831 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
21832
21833 </ul></li>
21834
21835 <li>2008
21836 <ul>
21837
21838 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
21839
21840 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
21841
21842 </ul></li>
21843
21844 </ul>
21845
21846
21847
21848 <h2>Tags</h2>
21849 <ul>
21850
21851  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
21852
21853  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
21854
21855  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
21856
21857  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
21858
21859  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
21860
21861  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (15)</a></li>
21862
21863  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
21864
21865  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
21866
21867  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (109)</a></li>
21868
21869  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (151)</a></li>
21870
21871  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
21872
21873  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
21874
21875  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (12)</a></li>
21876
21877  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
21878
21879  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (266)</a></li>
21880
21881  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (22)</a></li>
21882
21883  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
21884
21885  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (14)</a></li>
21886
21887  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
21888
21889  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
21890
21891  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (41)</a></li>
21892
21893  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (10)</a></li>
21894
21895  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
21896
21897  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
21898
21899  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
21900
21901  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
21902
21903  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
21904
21905  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
21906
21907  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (32)</a></li>
21908
21909  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (254)</a></li>
21910
21911  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (167)</a></li>
21912
21913  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (11)</a></li>
21914
21915  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
21916
21917  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (50)</a></li>
21918
21919  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (81)</a></li>
21920
21921  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
21922
21923  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
21924
21925  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
21926
21927  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
21928
21929  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
21930
21931  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
21932
21933  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
21934
21935  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
21936
21937  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
21938
21939  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
21940
21941  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
21942
21943  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (46)</a></li>
21944
21945  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
21946
21947  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
21948
21949  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (29)</a></li>
21950
21951  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
21952
21953  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
21954
21955  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
21956
21957  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (47)</a></li>
21958
21959  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
21960
21961  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (34)</a></li>
21962
21963 </ul>
21964
21965
21966     </div>
21967     <p style="text-align: right">
21968  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
21969 </p>
21970
21971   </body>
21972 </html>