blog/tags/english/index.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   2           "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
   3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr">
   4   <head>
   5     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Entries Tagged english</title>
   7     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/style.css" />
   8     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/vim.css" />
   9     <link rel="alternate" title="RSS Feed" href="english.rss" type="application/rss+xml" />
  10   </head>
  11   <body>
  12     <div class="title">
  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/Second_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         14th May 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
  32 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
  33 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
  34
  35 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
  36 2013-05-14</strong></p>
  37
  38 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
  39 alpha1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
  40
  41 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
  42
  43 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
  44 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
  45 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
  46 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
  47 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
  48 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
  49 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
  50 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
  51
  52 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
  53 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
  54 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
  55
  56 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
  57 <ul>
  58   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
  59     default.</li>
  60   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
  61   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
  62   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
  63     ibus-anthy.</li>
  64 </ul>
  65
  66 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
  67 <ul>
  68
  69   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
  70     reliability improvements.</li>
  71   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
  72     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
  73   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
  74     problems.</li>
  75   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
  76     direct:// URL.</li>
  77   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
  78   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
  79   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
  80   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
  81     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
  82   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
  83     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
  84 </ul>
  85
  86 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
  87 <ul>
  88
  89   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
  90     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
  91     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
  92   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
  93   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
  94     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
  95   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
  96   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
  97   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
  98     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
  99   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
 100     password submission problem
 101     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
 102
 103 </ul>
 104
 105 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
 106
 107 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
 108 <ul>
 109
 110   <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>
 111   <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>
 112   <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>
 113
 114 </ul>
 115
 116 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
 117
 118 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
 119
 120 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
 121
 122 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
 123
 124       </div>
 125       <div class="tags">
 126
 127
 128         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 129
 130
 131       </div>
 132     </div>
 133     <div class="padding"></div>
 134
 135     <div class="entry">
 136       <div class="title">
 137         <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>
 138       </div>
 139       <div class="date">
 140         11th May 2013
 141       </div>
 142       <div class="body">
 143         <P>In January,
 144 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
 145 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
 146 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
 147 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
 148 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
 149 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
 150 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
 151 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
 152 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
 153 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
 154 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
 155 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
 156
 157 <p><table>
 158 <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>
 159 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
 160 <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>
 161 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
 162 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
 163 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
 164 <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>
 165 <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>
 166 <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>
 167 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
 168 </table></p>
 169
 170 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
 171 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
 172 available in experimental.</p>
 173
 174 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
 175 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
 176 for LEGO designers.</p>
 177
 178       </div>
 179       <div class="tags">
 180
 181
 182         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>.
 183
 184
 185       </div>
 186     </div>
 187     <div class="padding"></div>
 188
 189     <div class="entry">
 190       <div class="title">
 191         <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>
 192       </div>
 193       <div class="date">
 194          5th May 2013
 195       </div>
 196       <div class="body">
 197         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
 198 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
 199 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
 200 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
 201 soon.</p>
 202
 203 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
 204 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
 205 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
 206 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
 207 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
 208 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
 209 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
 210 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
 211 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
 212 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
 213 Edu.</a>
 214
 215 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
 216 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
 217 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
 218 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
 219 follow.<p>
 220
 221       </div>
 222       <div class="tags">
 223
 224
 225         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>.
 226
 227
 228       </div>
 229     </div>
 230     <div class="padding"></div>
 231
 232     <div class="entry">
 233       <div class="title">
 234         <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>
 235       </div>
 236       <div class="date">
 237         26th April 2013
 238       </div>
 239       <div class="body">
 240         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
 241 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
 242 announcement:</p>
 243
 244 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
 245 2013-04-26</strong></p>
 246
 247 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
 248 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
 249
 250 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
 251
 252 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
 253 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
 254 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
 255 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
 256 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
 257 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
 258 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
 259 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
 260 installed via the network.</p>
 261
 262 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
 263 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
 264 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
 265
 266 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
 267
 268 <ul>
 269 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
 270   <ul>
 271      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
 272      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
 273          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
 274          manual.)</li>
 275      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
 276      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
 277      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
 278      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
 279      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
 280      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
 281      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
 282      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
 283      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
 284      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
 285      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
 286      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
 287          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
 288          manual</a> for more details.</li>
 289      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
 290          installation.</li>
 291      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
 292          <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>
 293   </ul></li>
 294 </ul>
 295
 296 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
 297 <ul>
 298 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
 299     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
 300     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
 301 </ul>
 302
 303 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
 304 <ul>
 305 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
 306     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
 307     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
 308 </ul>
 309
 310 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
 311 <ul>
 312 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
 313     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
 314     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
 315 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
 316     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
 317     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
 318 </ul>
 319
 320 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
 321 <ul>
 322 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
 323     yet.</li>
 324 </ul>
 325
 326 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
 327
 328 <ul>
 329 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
 330     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
 331     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
 332 </ul>
 333
 334 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
 335
 336 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
 337 <ul>
 338 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
 339 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
 340 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
 341 </ul>
 342
 343 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
 344
 345 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
 346
 347 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
 348
 349 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
 350
 351       </div>
 352       <div class="tags">
 353
 354
 355         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 356
 357
 358       </div>
 359     </div>
 360     <div class="padding"></div>
 361
 362     <div class="entry">
 363       <div class="title">
 364         <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>
 365       </div>
 366       <div class="date">
 367         16th April 2013
 368       </div>
 369       <div class="body">
 370         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
 371 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
 372 Details about the gathering can be found
 373 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
 374 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
 375 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
 376 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
 377 weekend.</p>
 378
 379 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
 380 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
 381 Edu release.</p>
 382
 383 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
 384
 385       </div>
 386       <div class="tags">
 387
 388
 389         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 390
 391
 392       </div>
 393     </div>
 394     <div class="padding"></div>
 395
 396     <div class="entry">
 397       <div class="title">
 398         <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>
 399       </div>
 400       <div class="date">
 401          3rd April 2013
 402       </div>
 403       <div class="body">
 404         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
 405 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
 406 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
 407 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
 408
 409 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
 410 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
 411 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
 412 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
 413 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
 414 BTS. :)</p>
 415
 416       </div>
 417       <div class="tags">
 418
 419
 420         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>.
 421
 422
 423       </div>
 424     </div>
 425     <div class="padding"></div>
 426
 427     <div class="entry">
 428       <div class="title">
 429         <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>
 430       </div>
 431       <div class="date">
 432         26th March 2013
 433       </div>
 434       <div class="body">
 435         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
 436 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
 437 font you use when printing.</p>
 438
 439 <p>Three years ago,
 440 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
 441 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
 442 changed their default front from
 443 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
 444 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
 445 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
 446 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
 447 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
 448 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
 449 prints.</p>
 450
 451 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
 452 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
 453 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
 454 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
 455 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
 456 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
 457 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
 458 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
 459 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
 460 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
 461 depend on the documents printed.</p>
 462
 463 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
 464 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
 465 and save some money in the process.</p>
 466
 467 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
 468 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
 469 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
 470 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
 471 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
 472 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
 473 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
 474 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
 475 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
 476
 477       </div>
 478       <div class="tags">
 479
 480
 481         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 482
 483
 484       </div>
 485     </div>
 486     <div class="padding"></div>
 487
 488     <div class="entry">
 489       <div class="title">
 490         <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>
 491       </div>
 492       <div class="date">
 493         24th March 2013
 494       </div>
 495       <div class="body">
 496         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
 497 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
 498 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
 499 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
 500 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
 501 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
 502 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
 503 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
 504 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
 505 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
 506 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
 507 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
 508
 509 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
 510 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
 511 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
 512 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
 513 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
 514 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
 515 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
 516 all I had to do was to use the
 517 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
 518 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
 519 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
 520 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
 521 xsltproc/fop (aka
 522 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
 523 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
 524 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
 525 technical detail.</p>
 526
 527 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
 528 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
 529 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
 530 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
 531 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
 532 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
 533
 534 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
 535 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
 536 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
 537 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
 538 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
 539 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
 540 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
 541 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
 542 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
 543
 544 <p><blockquote><pre>
 545 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
 546 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
 547   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
 548     &lt;hr/&gt;
 549   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
 550 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
 551 </pre></blockquote></p>
 552
 553 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
 554
 555 <p><blockquote><pre>
 556 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
 557 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
 558   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
 559     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
 560       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
 561     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
 562   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
 563 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
 564 </pre></blockquote></p>
 565
 566 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
 567 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
 568 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
 569 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
 570 enough.</p>
 571
 572 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
 573 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
 574 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
 575 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
 576 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
 577 look like this:</p>
 578
 579 <p><blockquote><pre>
 580 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
 581 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
 582   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
 583     &lt;br/&gt;
 584   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
 585 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
 586 </pre></blockquote></p>
 587
 588 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
 589
 590 <p><blockquote><pre>
 591 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
 592 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
 593   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
 594   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
 595     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
 596   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
 597 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
 598 </pre></blockquote></p>
 599
 600 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
 601 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
 602 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
 603 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
 604 page.</p>
 605
 606 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
 607 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
 608 github</a>
 609 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
 610 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
 611 days.</p>
 612
 613       </div>
 614       <div class="tags">
 615
 616
 617         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>.
 618
 619
 620       </div>
 621     </div>
 622     <div class="padding"></div>
 623
 624     <div class="entry">
 625       <div class="title">
 626         <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>
 627       </div>
 628       <div class="date">
 629         17th March 2013
 630       </div>
 631       <div class="body">
 632         <p>Via
 633 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
 634 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
 635 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
 636 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
 637 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
 638 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
 639 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
 640
 641 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
 642 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
 643
 644 <blockquote>
 645 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
 646 </blockquote>
 647
 648 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
 649
 650 <blockquote>
 651 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
 652 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
 653 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
 654 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
 655 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
 656 </blockquote>
 657
 658 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
 659 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
 660 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
 661 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
 662
 663 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
 664 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
 665
 666 <blockquote>
 667 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
 668 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
 669 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
 670 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
 671 </blockquote>
 672
 673 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
 674 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
 675 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
 676 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
 677 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
 678
 679 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
 680 embedding:</p>
 681
 682 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 683
 684       </div>
 685       <div class="tags">
 686
 687
 688         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
 689
 690
 691       </div>
 692     </div>
 693     <div class="padding"></div>
 694
 695     <div class="entry">
 696       <div class="title">
 697         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
 698       </div>
 699       <div class="date">
 700          8th March 2013
 701       </div>
 702       <div class="body">
 703         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
 704 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
 705 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
 706 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
 707 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
 708 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
 709 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
 710
 711 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
 712
 713 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
 714 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
 715
 716 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
 717 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
 718 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
 719 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
 720 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
 721 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
 722
 723 <p>Images are available for download at
 724 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
 725
 726 <p>md5sums:
 727 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
 728 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
 729 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
 730
 731 <p>sha1sums:
 732 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
 733 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
 734 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
 735
 736 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
 737
 738 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
 739 2013-03-03:</p>
 740
 741 <ul>
 742   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
 743   <ul>
 744         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
 745         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
 746   </ul></li>
 747   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
 748   <ul>
 749         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
 750         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
 751   </ul></li>
 752   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
 753      <ul>
 754         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
 755         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
 756         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
 757                 Closes: #664596</li>
 758         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
 759                 Closes: #664976</li>
 760         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
 761            <ul>
 762                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
 763                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
 764            </ul></li>
 765         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
 766            <ul>
 767                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
 768                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
 769                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
 770                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
 771                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
 772            </ul></li>
 773         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
 774     </ul>
 775   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
 776     <ul>
 777         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
 778     </ul></li>
 779 </ul>
 780
 781 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
 782 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
 783 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
 784 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
 785
 786 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
 787 mailinglist
 788 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
 789 </p></blockquote>
 790
 791 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
 792
 793       </div>
 794       <div class="tags">
 795
 796
 797         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 798
 799
 800       </div>
 801     </div>
 802     <div class="padding"></div>
 803
 804     <div class="entry">
 805       <div class="title">
 806         <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>
 807       </div>
 808       <div class="date">
 809          3rd March 2013
 810       </div>
 811       <div class="body">
 812         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
 813 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
 814 support using
 815 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
 816 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
 817 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
 818 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
 819 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
 820 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
 821 using the GNU LGPL, and
 822 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
 823
 824 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
 825 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
 826 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
 827 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
 828 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
 829 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
 830
 831 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
 832 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
 833 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
 834 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
 835 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
 836 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
 837 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
 838 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
 839 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
 840 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
 841 signal distribution is handled using
 842 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
 843 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
 844 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
 845 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
 846 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
 847 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
 848 them up a bit more first.</p>
 849
 850 <p>The development is coordinated on the
 851 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
 852 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
 853 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
 854 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
 855 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
 856 development.</p>
 857
 858       </div>
 859       <div class="tags">
 860
 861
 862         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>.
 863
 864
 865       </div>
 866     </div>
 867     <div class="padding"></div>
 868
 869     <div class="entry">
 870       <div class="title">
 871         <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>
 872       </div>
 873       <div class="date">
 874         27th February 2013
 875       </div>
 876       <div class="body">
 877         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
 878 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
 879 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
 880 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
 881 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
 882 (where I am the chair of the board) and
 883 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
 884 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
 885 GNU», with this description:
 886
 887 <p><blockquote>
 888 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
 889 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
 890 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
 891 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
 892 </blockquote></p>
 893
 894 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
 895 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
 896 am really curious how many will show up.  See
 897 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
 898 page</a> for the location details.</p>
 899
 900       </div>
 901       <div class="tags">
 902
 903
 904         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>.
 905
 906
 907       </div>
 908     </div>
 909     <div class="padding"></div>
 910
 911     <div class="entry">
 912       <div class="title">
 913         <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>
 914       </div>
 915       <div class="date">
 916         15th February 2013
 917       </div>
 918       <div class="body">
 919         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
 920 now a great source of free maps available from
 921 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
 922 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
 923 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
 924 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
 925 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
 926 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
 927 page for descriptions).</p>
 928
 929 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
 930 map you can just edit the
 931 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
 932 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
 933
 934       </div>
 935       <div class="tags">
 936
 937
 938         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>.
 939
 940
 941       </div>
 942     </div>
 943     <div class="padding"></div>
 944
 945     <div class="entry">
 946       <div class="title">
 947         <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>
 948       </div>
 949       <div class="date">
 950         12th February 2013
 951       </div>
 952       <div class="body">
 953         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
 954 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
 955 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
 956 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
 957 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
 958 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
 959 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
 960 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
 961 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
 962 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
 963 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
 964 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
 965 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
 966 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
 967 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
 968 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
 969
 970 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
 971 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
 972 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
 973 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
 974 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
 975 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
 976 fields:</p>
 977
 978 <p><pre>
 979 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
 980 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
 981 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
 982 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
 983 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
 984 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
 985 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
 986 </pre></p>
 987
 988 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
 989 answer regarding
 990 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
 991 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
 992 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
 993 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
 994
 995 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
 996
 997 <p><pre>
 998 BEGIN:VCARD
 999 VERSION:2.1
1000 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
1001 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
1002 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
1003 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
1004 REV:20130212T095000Z
1005 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
1006 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
1007 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
1008 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
1009 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
1010 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
1011 END:VCARD
1012 </pre></p>
1013
1014 <p>The resulting QR code created using
1015 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
1016 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
1017 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
1018 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
1019 system.</p>
1020
1021 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
1022
1023 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
1024 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
1025 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
1026 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
1027
1028 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
1029 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
1030
1031       </div>
1032       <div class="tags">
1033
1034
1035         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>.
1036
1037
1038       </div>
1039     </div>
1040     <div class="padding"></div>
1041
1042     <div class="entry">
1043       <div class="title">
1044         <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>
1045       </div>
1046       <div class="date">
1047         10th February 2013
1048       </div>
1049       <div class="body">
1050         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
1051
1052 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
1053 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
1054 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
1055 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
1056 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
1057 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
1058 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
1059 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
1060 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
1061 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
1062 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
1063
1064 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
1065 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
1066 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
1067 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
1068 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
1069 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
1070 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
1071 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
1072 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
1073 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
1074 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
1075 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
1076 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
1077 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
1078 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
1079 ones own
1080 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
1081 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
1082 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
1083 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
1084 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
1085 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
1086 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
1087 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
1088 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
1089 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
1090 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
1091
1092 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
1093 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
1094 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
1095 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
1096 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
1097 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
1098
1099 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
1100 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
1101 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
1102
1103       </div>
1104       <div class="tags">
1105
1106
1107         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1108
1109
1110       </div>
1111     </div>
1112     <div class="padding"></div>
1113
1114     <div class="entry">
1115       <div class="title">
1116         <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>
1117       </div>
1118       <div class="date">
1119          2nd February 2013
1120       </div>
1121       <div class="body">
1122         <p>My
1123 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
1124 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
1125 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
1126 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
1127 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
1128 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
1129 version too.</p>
1130
1131 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
1132 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
1133 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
1134 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
1135 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
1136 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
1137 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
1138 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
1139
1140 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
1141 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
1142 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
1143 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
1144 it. :)</p>
1145
1146 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1147 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1148 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1149
1150       </div>
1151       <div class="tags">
1152
1153
1154         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>.
1155
1156
1157       </div>
1158     </div>
1159     <div class="padding"></div>
1160
1161     <div class="entry">
1162       <div class="title">
1163         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
1164       </div>
1165       <div class="date">
1166         22nd January 2013
1167       </div>
1168       <div class="body">
1169         <p>Yesterday, I
1170 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
1171 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
1172 pluggable hardware devices, which I
1173 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
1174 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
1175 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
1176 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
1177 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
1178 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
1179 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
1180 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
1181 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
1182 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
1183
1184 <pre>
1185 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
1186 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
1187 </pre>
1188
1189 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
1190 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
1191 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
1192 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
1193
1194 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
1195 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
1196 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
1197 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
1198 word.</p>
1199
1200 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
1201 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
1202 process.</p>
1203
1204 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
1205 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</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/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</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/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
1221       </div>
1222       <div class="date">
1223         21st January 2013
1224       </div>
1225       <div class="body">
1226         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
1227 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
1228 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
1229 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
1230 it, fetch the
1231 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
1232 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
1233 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
1234 autostart script.</p>
1235
1236 <p>The design is simple:</p>
1237
1238 <ul>
1239
1240 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
1241 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
1242
1243 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
1244 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
1245 initially did.</li>
1246
1247 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
1248 the APT database, a database
1249 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
1250 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
1251
1252 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
1253 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
1254 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
1255 package or packages.</li>
1256
1257 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
1258 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
1259
1260 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
1261 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
1262
1263 </ul>
1264
1265 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
1266 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
1267 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
1268 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
1269
1270 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
1271 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
1272 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
1273 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
1274 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
1275
1276 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
1277 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
1278 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
1279 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
1280 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
1281 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
1282 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
1283 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
1284
1285 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
1286 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
1287 '<tt>svn checkout
1288 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
1289 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
1290 devscripts package.</p>
1291
1292 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
1293 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
1294 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
1295 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
1296 instructions</a> for details.</p>
1297
1298       </div>
1299       <div class="tags">
1300
1301
1302         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>.
1303
1304
1305       </div>
1306     </div>
1307     <div class="padding"></div>
1308
1309     <div class="entry">
1310       <div class="title">
1311         <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>
1312       </div>
1313       <div class="date">
1314         19th January 2013
1315       </div>
1316       <div class="body">
1317         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
1318 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
1319 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
1320 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
1321 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
1322 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
1323 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
1324 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
1325 not a durable solution.
1326
1327 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
1328 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
1329
1330 <ul>
1331
1332 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
1333   than A4).</li>
1334 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
1335 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
1336 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
1337 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
1338 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
1339 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
1340 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
1341 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
1342 size).</li>
1343 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
1344   X.org packages.</li>
1345 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
1346   the time).
1347
1348 </ul>
1349
1350 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
1351 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
1352 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
1353 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
1354 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
1355 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
1356 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
1357 still be useful.</p>
1358
1359 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
1360 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
1361 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
1362 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
1363 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
1364 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
1365
1366       </div>
1367       <div class="tags">
1368
1369
1370         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>.
1371
1372
1373       </div>
1374     </div>
1375     <div class="padding"></div>
1376
1377     <div class="entry">
1378       <div class="title">
1379         <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>
1380       </div>
1381       <div class="date">
1382         18th January 2013
1383       </div>
1384       <div class="body">
1385         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
1386 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
1387 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
1388 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
1389 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
1390 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
1391 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
1392
1393 <pre>
1394 #!/usr/bin/python
1395 import sys
1396 import apt
1397 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
1398     cache = apt.Cache()
1399     cache.open(None)
1400     thepkgs = []
1401     for pkg in cache:
1402         version = pkg.candidate
1403         if version is None:
1404             version = pkg.installed
1405         if version is None:
1406             continue
1407         record = version.record
1408         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
1409             continue
1410         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
1411         for t in mime_types:
1412             t = t.rstrip().strip()
1413             if t == mimetype:
1414                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
1415     return thepkgs
1416 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
1417 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
1418     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
1419 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
1420 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
1421     print "  %s" %pkg
1422 </pre>
1423
1424 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
1425
1426 <pre>
1427 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
1428 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
1429   gecko-mediaplayer
1430 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
1431 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
1432   browser-plugin-gnash
1433 %
1434 </pre>
1435
1436 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
1437 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
1438 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
1439 anyone working on adding it?</p>
1440
1441 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
1442 request for icweasel support for this feature is
1443 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
1444 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
1445 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
1446 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
1447
1448       </div>
1449       <div class="tags">
1450
1451
1452         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>.
1453
1454
1455       </div>
1456     </div>
1457     <div class="padding"></div>
1458
1459     <div class="entry">
1460       <div class="title">
1461         <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>
1462       </div>
1463       <div class="date">
1464         16th January 2013
1465       </div>
1466       <div class="body">
1467         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
1468 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
1469 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
1470 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
1471 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
1472 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
1473 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
1474 downloaded by the browser.</p>
1475
1476 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
1477 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
1478 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
1479 can be found on the
1480 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
1481 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
1482 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
1483 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
1484 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
1485
1486 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
1487
1488 <pre>
1489   count MIME type
1490   ----- -----------------------
1491      32 text/plain
1492      30 audio/mpeg
1493      29 image/png
1494      28 image/jpeg
1495      27 application/ogg
1496      26 audio/x-mp3
1497      25 image/tiff
1498      25 image/gif
1499      22 image/bmp
1500      22 audio/x-wav
1501      20 audio/x-flac
1502      19 audio/x-mpegurl
1503      18 video/x-ms-asf
1504      18 audio/x-musepack
1505      18 audio/x-mpeg
1506      18 application/x-ogg
1507      17 video/mpeg
1508      17 audio/x-scpls
1509      17 audio/ogg
1510      16 video/x-ms-wmv
1511 </pre>
1512
1513 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
1514
1515 <pre>
1516   count MIME type
1517   ----- -----------------------
1518      33 text/plain
1519      32 image/png
1520      32 image/jpeg
1521      29 audio/mpeg
1522      27 image/gif
1523      26 image/tiff
1524      26 application/ogg
1525      25 audio/x-mp3
1526      22 image/bmp
1527      21 audio/x-wav
1528      19 audio/x-mpegurl
1529      19 audio/x-mpeg
1530      18 video/mpeg
1531      18 audio/x-scpls
1532      18 audio/x-flac
1533      18 application/x-ogg
1534      17 video/x-ms-asf
1535      17 text/html
1536      17 audio/x-musepack
1537      16 image/x-xbitmap
1538 </pre>
1539
1540 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
1541
1542 <pre>
1543   count MIME type
1544   ----- -----------------------
1545      31 text/plain
1546      31 image/png
1547      31 image/jpeg
1548      29 audio/mpeg
1549      28 application/ogg
1550      27 image/gif
1551      26 image/tiff
1552      26 audio/x-mp3
1553      23 audio/x-wav
1554      22 image/bmp
1555      21 audio/x-flac
1556      20 audio/x-mpegurl
1557      19 audio/x-mpeg
1558      18 video/x-ms-asf
1559      18 video/mpeg
1560      18 audio/x-scpls
1561      18 application/x-ogg
1562      17 audio/x-musepack
1563      16 video/x-ms-wmv
1564      16 video/x-msvideo
1565 </pre>
1566
1567 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
1568 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
1569 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
1570 issues.</p>
1571
1572 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
1573 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
1574
1575       </div>
1576       <div class="tags">
1577
1578
1579         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>.
1580
1581
1582       </div>
1583     </div>
1584     <div class="padding"></div>
1585
1586     <div class="entry">
1587       <div class="title">
1588         <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>
1589       </div>
1590       <div class="date">
1591         15th January 2013
1592       </div>
1593       <div class="body">
1594         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
1595 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
1596 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
1597 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
1598 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
1599 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
1600 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
1601 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
1602 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
1603 packages.</p>
1604
1605 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
1606 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
1607 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
1608 modalias.</p>
1609
1610 <p><blockquote>
1611 Package: package-name
1612 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
1613 </blockquote></p>
1614
1615 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
1616 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
1617
1618 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
1619 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
1620
1621 <p><blockquote>
1622 Package: cheese
1623 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
1624 </blockquote></p>
1625
1626 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
1627 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
1628
1629 <p><blockquote>
1630 Package: pcmciautils
1631 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
1632 </blockquote></p>
1633
1634 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
1635 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
1636
1637 <p><blockquote>
1638 Package: colorhug-client
1639 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
1640 </blockquote></p>
1641
1642 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
1643 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
1644 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
1645
1646 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
1647 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
1648 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
1649 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
1650 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
1651 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
1652 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
1653 Raring.</p>
1654
1655 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
1656 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
1657 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
1658 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
1659 try the
1660 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
1661 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
1662 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
1663 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
1664
1665 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
1666 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
1667
1668 <p><blockquote>
1669 % ./hw-support-lookup
1670 <br>yubikey-personalization
1671 <br>%
1672 </blockquote></p>
1673
1674 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
1675 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
1676
1677 <p><blockquote>
1678 % ./hw-support-lookup
1679 <br>pcmciautils
1680 <br>%
1681 </blockquote></p>
1682
1683 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
1684 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
1685 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
1686
1687 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
1688 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
1689 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
1690 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
1691 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
1692 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
1693 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
1694 see if it work.</p>
1695
1696 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
1697 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
1698 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
1699 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
1700
1701       </div>
1702       <div class="tags">
1703
1704
1705         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>.
1706
1707
1708       </div>
1709     </div>
1710     <div class="padding"></div>
1711
1712     <div class="entry">
1713       <div class="title">
1714         <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>
1715       </div>
1716       <div class="date">
1717         14th January 2013
1718       </div>
1719       <div class="body">
1720         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
1721 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
1722 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
1723 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
1724 in
1725 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
1726 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
1727
1728 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
1729
1730 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
1731 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
1732 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
1733 &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;,
1734 &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
1735 &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;.
1736
1737 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
1738 this shell script:</p>
1739
1740 <pre>
1741 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
1742 </pre>
1743
1744 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
1745 using modinfo:</p>
1746
1747 <pre>
1748 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
1749 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
1750 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
1751 %
1752 </pre>
1753
1754 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
1755
1756 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
1757 Bridge memory controller:</p>
1758
1759 <p><blockquote>
1760 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
1761 </blockquote></p>
1762
1763 <p>This represent these values:</p>
1764
1765 <pre>
1766  v   00008086  (vendor)
1767  d   00002770  (device)
1768  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
1769  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
1770  bc  06        (bus class)
1771  sc  00        (bus subclass)
1772  i   00        (interface)
1773 </pre>
1774
1775 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
1776 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
1777 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
1778 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
1779
1780 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
1781 means.</p>
1782
1783 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
1784
1785 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
1786 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
1787
1788 <p><blockquote>
1789 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
1790 </blockquote></p>
1791
1792 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
1793
1794 <pre>
1795  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
1796  p    0001  (device product)
1797  d    0206  (bcddevice)
1798  dc     09  (device class)
1799  dsc    00  (device subclass)
1800  dp     00  (device protocol)
1801  ic     09  (interface class)
1802  isc    00  (interface subclass)
1803  ip     00  (interface protocol)
1804 </pre>
1805
1806 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
1807 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
1808 these alias entries show up:</p>
1809
1810 <p><blockquote>
1811 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
1812 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
1813 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
1814 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
1815 </blockquote></p>
1816
1817 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
1818 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
1819 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
1820
1821 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
1822
1823 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
1824 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
1825
1826 <p><blockquote>
1827 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
1828 </blockquote></p>
1829
1830 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
1831
1832 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
1833
1834 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
1835 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
1836 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
1837
1838 <p><blockquote>
1839 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
1840 </blockquote></p>
1841
1842 <p>The values present are</p>
1843
1844 <pre>
1845  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
1846  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
1847  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
1848  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
1849  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
1850  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
1851  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
1852  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
1853  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
1854  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
1855  ct   10             (chassis type)
1856  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
1857 </pre>
1858
1859 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
1860 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
1861
1862 <pre>
1863   3 Desktop
1864   4 Low Profile Desktop
1865   5 Pizza Box
1866   6 Mini Tower
1867   7 Tower
1868   8 Portable
1869   9 Laptop
1870  10 Notebook
1871  11 Hand Held
1872  12 Docking Station
1873  13 All In One
1874  14 Sub Notebook
1875  15 Space-saving
1876  16 Lunch Box
1877  17 Main Server Chassis
1878  18 Expansion Chassis
1879  19 Sub Chassis
1880  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
1881  21 Peripheral Chassis
1882  22 RAID Chassis
1883  23 Rack Mount Chassis
1884  24 Sealed-case PC
1885  25 Multi-system
1886  26 CompactPCI
1887  27 AdvancedTCA
1888  28 Blade
1889  29 Blade Enclosing
1890 </pre>
1891
1892 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
1893 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
1894 claim it is a desktop.</p>
1895
1896 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
1897
1898 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
1899 test machine:</p>
1900
1901 <p><blockquote>
1902 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
1903 </blockquote></p>
1904
1905 <p>The values present are</p>
1906
1907 <pre>
1908   ty  01  (type)
1909   pr  00  (prototype)
1910   id  00  (id)
1911   ex  00  (extra)
1912 </pre>
1913
1914 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
1915 the valid values are.</p>
1916
1917 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
1918
1919 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
1920 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
1921 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
1922 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
1923 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
1924 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
1925 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
1926
1927 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
1928
1929 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
1930 one can use the following shell script:</p>
1931
1932 <pre>
1933   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
1934     echo "$id" ; \
1935     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
1936   done
1937 </pre>
1938
1939 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
1940 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
1941
1942 <pre>
1943   acpi:ACPI0003:
1944     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
1945   acpi:device:
1946   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
1947   acpi:IBM0068:
1948     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
1949     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
1950     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
1951     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
1952   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
1953     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
1954     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
1955     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
1956   [...]
1957 </pre>
1958
1959 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
1960 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
1961 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
1962 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
1963
1964 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
1965 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
1966 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
1967
1968       </div>
1969       <div class="tags">
1970
1971
1972         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>.
1973
1974
1975       </div>
1976     </div>
1977     <div class="padding"></div>
1978
1979     <div class="entry">
1980       <div class="title">
1981         <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>
1982       </div>
1983       <div class="date">
1984         10th January 2013
1985       </div>
1986       <div class="body">
1987         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
1988 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
1989 Launcher and updated the Debian package
1990 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
1991 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
1992 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
1993 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
1994 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
1995 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
1996 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
1997 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
1998 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
1999 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
2000 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
2001 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
2002 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
2003 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
2004 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
2005
2006       </div>
2007       <div class="tags">
2008
2009
2010         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>.
2011
2012
2013       </div>
2014     </div>
2015     <div class="padding"></div>
2016
2017     <div class="entry">
2018       <div class="title">
2019         <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>
2020       </div>
2021       <div class="date">
2022          9th January 2013
2023       </div>
2024       <div class="body">
2025         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
2026 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
2027 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
2028 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
2029 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
2030 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
2031 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
2032 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
2033 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
2034 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
2035 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
2036
2037 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
2038 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
2039 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
2040 simple:
2041
2042 <ul>
2043
2044 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
2045   starting when a user log in.</li>
2046
2047 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
2048   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
2049
2050 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
2051   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
2052   packages.</li>
2053
2054 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
2055   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
2056
2057 </ul>
2058
2059 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
2060 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
2061 discover database to find packages and
2062 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
2063 packages.</p>
2064
2065 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
2066 draft package is now checked into
2067 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
2068 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
2069 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
2070 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
2071 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
2072 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
2073 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
2074 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
2075 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
2076 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
2077 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
2078 because of the freeze).</p>
2079
2080 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
2081 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
2082 inserted):</p>
2083
2084 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
2085
2086 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
2087 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
2088 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
2089
2090 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
2091 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
2092 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
2093 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
2094 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
2095 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
2096 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
2097
2098 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
2099 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
2100 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
2101 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
2102 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
2103 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
2104 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
2105 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
2106 not be installed?</p>
2107
2108 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
2109 please send me an email. :)</p>
2110
2111       </div>
2112       <div class="tags">
2113
2114
2115         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>.
2116
2117
2118       </div>
2119     </div>
2120     <div class="padding"></div>
2121
2122     <div class="entry">
2123       <div class="title">
2124         <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>
2125       </div>
2126       <div class="date">
2127          2nd January 2013
2128       </div>
2129       <div class="body">
2130         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
2131 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
2132 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
2133 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
2134 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
2135 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
2136 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
2137 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
2138 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
2139 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
2140
2141 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
2142 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
2143 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
2144
2145       </div>
2146       <div class="tags">
2147
2148
2149         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>.
2150
2151
2152       </div>
2153     </div>
2154     <div class="padding"></div>
2155
2156     <div class="entry">
2157       <div class="title">
2158         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
2159       </div>
2160       <div class="date">
2161         28th December 2012
2162       </div>
2163       <div class="body">
2164         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
2165 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
2166 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
2167 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
2168 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
2169 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
2170 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
2171 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
2172 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
2173 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
2174 followed by many others. :)</p>
2175
2176 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
2177 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
2178 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
2179 you want to donate to the project.</p>
2180
2181       </div>
2182       <div class="tags">
2183
2184
2185         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2186
2187
2188       </div>
2189     </div>
2190     <div class="padding"></div>
2191
2192     <div class="entry">
2193       <div class="title">
2194         <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>
2195       </div>
2196       <div class="date">
2197         25th December 2012
2198       </div>
2199       <div class="body">
2200         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
2201 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
2202
2203 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
2204 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
2205 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
2206 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
2207 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
2208 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
2209 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
2210 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
2211 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
2212 name.</p>
2213
2214 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
2215 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
2216 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
2217
2218 <blockquote><pre>
2219 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
2220 cd bitcoin
2221 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
2222 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
2223 </pre></blockquote>
2224
2225 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
2226 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
2227 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
2228 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
2229 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
2230 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
2231 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
2232 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
2233 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
2234
2235 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2236 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2237 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2238
2239       </div>
2240       <div class="tags">
2241
2242
2243         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>.
2244
2245
2246       </div>
2247     </div>
2248     <div class="padding"></div>
2249
2250     <div class="entry">
2251       <div class="title">
2252         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
2253       </div>
2254       <div class="date">
2255         21st December 2012
2256       </div>
2257       <div class="body">
2258         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
2259 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
2260 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
2261 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
2262 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
2263 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
2264 is now maintained by a
2265 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
2266 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
2267 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
2268 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
2269 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
2270 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
2271 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
2272 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
2273 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
2274 Corallo in a
2275 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
2276 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
2277 Debian package.</p>
2278
2279 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
2280 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
2281 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
2282 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
2283 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
2284 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
2285 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
2286 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
2287 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
2288 new version to unstable.
2289
2290 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
2291 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
2292 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
2293 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
2294 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
2295 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
2296 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
2297 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
2298 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
2299 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
2300 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
2301 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
2302 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
2303 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
2304 have not tested them.</p>
2305
2306 <p>My
2307 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
2308 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
2309 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
2310 years ago, as can be
2311 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
2312 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
2313 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
2314 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
2315 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
2316 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
2317 the same address as last time,
2318 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2319
2320       </div>
2321       <div class="tags">
2322
2323
2324         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>.
2325
2326
2327       </div>
2328     </div>
2329     <div class="padding"></div>
2330
2331     <div class="entry">
2332       <div class="title">
2333         <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>
2334       </div>
2335       <div class="date">
2336         18th December 2012
2337       </div>
2338       <div class="body">
2339         <p>A few days ago I came across
2340 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
2341 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
2342 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
2343 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
2344 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
2345 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
2346 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
2347 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
2348 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
2349
2350 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
2351 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
2352 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
2353 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
2354
2355 <blockquote><pre>
2356 2004-05-27 Book Store
2357       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
2358       Liabilities:Visa
2359 </pre></blockquote>
2360
2361 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
2362 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
2363 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
2364 Spang</a>,
2365 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
2366 Keen</a>,
2367 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
2368 Cantino</a> and
2369 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
2370 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
2371 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
2372 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
2373 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
2374
2375 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
2376 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
2377 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
2378 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
2379 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
2380
2381 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
2382 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
2383 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
2384 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
2385 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
2386 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
2387 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
2388 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
2389 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
2390
2391       </div>
2392       <div class="tags">
2393
2394
2395         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
2396
2397
2398       </div>
2399     </div>
2400     <div class="padding"></div>
2401
2402     <div class="entry">
2403       <div class="title">
2404         <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>
2405       </div>
2406       <div class="date">
2407          6th December 2012
2408       </div>
2409       <div class="body">
2410         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
2411 Oslo</a>, we use the
2412 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
2413 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
2414 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
2415 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
2416 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
2417 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
2418 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
2419 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
2420 Python.</p>
2421
2422 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
2423 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
2424 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
2425 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
2426 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
2427 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
2428
2429 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
2430 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
2431 user currently logged in:</p>
2432
2433 <blockquote><pre>
2434 #!/usr/bin/env python
2435 import getpass
2436 import xmlrpclib
2437 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
2438 username = getpass.getuser()
2439 password = getpass.getpass()
2440 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
2441 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
2442 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
2443 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
2444 result = server.logout(sessionid)
2445 print result
2446 </pre></blockquote>
2447
2448 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
2449 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
2450
2451       </div>
2452       <div class="tags">
2453
2454
2455         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>.
2456
2457
2458       </div>
2459     </div>
2460     <div class="padding"></div>
2461
2462     <div class="entry">
2463       <div class="title">
2464         <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>
2465       </div>
2466       <div class="date">
2467         17th November 2012
2468       </div>
2469       <div class="body">
2470         <p>While working on a
2471 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
2472 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
2473 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
2474 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
2475 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
2476 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
2477
2478 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
2479 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
2480 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
2481 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
2482 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
2483 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
2484 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
2485 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
2486 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
2487 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
2488 arguments.</p>
2489
2490 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
2491 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
2492 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
2493 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
2494 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
2495 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
2496 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
2497 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
2498
2499 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
2500 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
2501 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
2502 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
2503 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
2504 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
2505 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
2506 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
2507 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
2508 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
2509 correct right holder.</p>
2510
2511 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
2512 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
2513 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
2514 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
2515 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
2516 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
2517 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
2518 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
2519 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
2520 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
2521 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
2522 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
2523 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
2524 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
2525
2526 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
2527 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
2528 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
2529
2530 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
2531 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
2532
2533       </div>
2534       <div class="tags">
2535
2536
2537         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>.
2538
2539
2540       </div>
2541     </div>
2542     <div class="padding"></div>
2543
2544     <div class="entry">
2545       <div class="title">
2546         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
2547       </div>
2548       <div class="date">
2549         14th November 2012
2550       </div>
2551       <div class="body">
2552         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
2553 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
2554 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
2555 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
2556 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
2557 the people behind the German
2558 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
2559 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
2560 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
2561
2562 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2563
2564 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
2565 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
2566 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
2567
2568 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
2569 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
2570 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
2571 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
2572 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
2573 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
2574
2575 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
2576 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
2577 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
2578 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
2579 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
2580 relationship management and the communication processes in the
2581 project.</p>
2582
2583 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
2584 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
2585 and a yoga teacher.</p>
2586
2587 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
2588 project?</strong></p>
2589
2590 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
2591
2592 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
2593 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
2594 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
2595 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
2596 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
2597 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
2598 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
2599 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
2600 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
2601 parents.</p>
2602
2603 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
2604 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
2605 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
2606 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
2607 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
2608 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
2609 Germany.</p>
2610
2611 <p>For information about our school project you can read
2612 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
2613 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
2614
2615 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2616 Edu?</strong></p>
2617
2618 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
2619 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
2620
2621 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
2622 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
2623 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
2624 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
2625 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
2626 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
2627 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
2628 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
2629 teachers, parents...</p>
2630
2631 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2632 Edu?</strong></p>
2633
2634 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
2635 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
2636
2637 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
2638 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
2639 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
2640 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
2641 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
2642
2643 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
2644 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
2645 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
2646 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
2647 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
2648 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
2649 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
2650
2651 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2652
2653 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
2654 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
2655 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
2656 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
2657
2658 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2659 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2660
2661 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
2662 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
2663 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
2664 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
2665 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
2666
2667 <ul>
2668
2669 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
2670 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
2671 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
2672
2673 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
2674 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
2675 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
2676 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
2677 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
2678 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
2679 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
2680
2681 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
2682 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
2683 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
2684 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
2685
2686 </ul>
2687
2688       </div>
2689       <div class="tags">
2690
2691
2692         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
2693
2694
2695       </div>
2696     </div>
2697     <div class="padding"></div>
2698
2699     <div class="entry">
2700       <div class="title">
2701         <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>
2702       </div>
2703       <div class="date">
2704          4th November 2012
2705       </div>
2706       <div class="body">
2707         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
2708 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
2709 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
2710 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
2711 see how a member of the bitcoin community
2712 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
2713 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
2714 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
2715 competition.  My thoughts go to the
2716 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
2717 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
2718 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
2719 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
2720 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
2721
2722 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
2723 that the community already seem to have
2724 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
2725 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
2726 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
2727 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
2728 wealth is available.</p>
2729
2730       </div>
2731       <div class="tags">
2732
2733
2734         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>.
2735
2736
2737       </div>
2738     </div>
2739     <div class="padding"></div>
2740
2741     <div class="entry">
2742       <div class="title">
2743         <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>
2744       </div>
2745       <div class="date">
2746         26th October 2012
2747       </div>
2748       <div class="body">
2749         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
2750 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
2751 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
2752 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
2753 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
2754 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
2755 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
2756 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
2757 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
2758 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
2759 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
2760 it every time.</p>
2761
2762 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
2763 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
2764 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
2765 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
2766 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
2767 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
2768 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
2769 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
2770 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
2771 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
2772 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
2773 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
2774
2775 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
2776 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
2777 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
2778 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
2779 article: First the unplanned outage:
2780
2781 <blockquote><pre>
2782 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
2783 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
2784 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
2785 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
2786 Duration:    40 minutes
2787 Scope:       Exchange 2003
2788 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
2789              a cluster failover.
2790
2791 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
2792              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
2793 Technician:  [xxx]
2794 </pre></blockquote>
2795
2796 Next the planned outage:
2797
2798 <blockquote><pre>
2799 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
2800 Severity:    Major (Planned)
2801 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
2802 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
2803 Duration:    10 hours
2804 Scope:       H2 Transport
2805 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
2806              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
2807              4510s.
2808 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
2809              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
2810              connectivity.
2811 Technician:  [xxx]
2812 </pre></blockquote>
2813
2814 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
2815 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
2816 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
2817 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
2818 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
2819 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
2820 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
2821
2822 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
2823 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
2824 university too.  We do register
2825 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
2826 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
2827 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
2828 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
2829 for other sites to consider too?</p>
2830
2831       </div>
2832       <div class="tags">
2833
2834
2835         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>.
2836
2837
2838       </div>
2839     </div>
2840     <div class="padding"></div>
2841
2842     <div class="entry">
2843       <div class="title">
2844         <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>
2845       </div>
2846       <div class="date">
2847         22nd October 2012
2848       </div>
2849       <div class="body">
2850         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
2851 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
2852 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
2853 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
2854 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
2855 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
2856 background information is available in Norwegian from
2857 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
2858 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
2859 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
2860 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
2861 willing to
2862 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
2863 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
2864 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
2865 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
2866 sounded like
2867 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
2868 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
2869 later.</p>
2870
2871 <p>And thought this action is
2872 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
2873 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
2874 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
2875 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
2876 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
2877 rights.</p>
2878
2879 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
2880 unacceptable terms.  For example
2881 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
2882 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
2883 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
2884 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
2885 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
2886
2887 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
2888 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
2889 restored the account of the user, as reported by
2890 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
2891 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
2892 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
2893 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
2894 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
2895 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
2896 reading two opinions from
2897 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
2898 Phipps</a> and
2899 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
2900 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
2901 details about the original story.</p>
2902
2903       </div>
2904       <div class="tags">
2905
2906
2907         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>.
2908
2909
2910       </div>
2911     </div>
2912     <div class="padding"></div>
2913
2914     <div class="entry">
2915       <div class="title">
2916         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
2917       </div>
2918       <div class="date">
2919         18th October 2012
2920       </div>
2921       <div class="body">
2922         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
2923 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
2924 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
2925 across a marvellous drawing by
2926 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
2927 visualising some of what is going on.
2928
2929 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
2930 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
2931
2932 <blockquote>
2933 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
2934 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
2935 </blockquote>
2936
2937 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
2938 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
2939 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
2940 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
2941 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
2942 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
2943
2944       </div>
2945       <div class="tags">
2946
2947
2948         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>.
2949
2950
2951       </div>
2952     </div>
2953     <div class="padding"></div>
2954
2955     <div class="entry">
2956       <div class="title">
2957         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
2958       </div>
2959       <div class="date">
2960         12th October 2012
2961       </div>
2962       <div class="body">
2963         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
2964 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
2965 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
2966 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
2967 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
2968 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
2969 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
2970 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
2971 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
2972 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
2973 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
2974 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
2975 matter".</p>
2976
2977 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
2978 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
2979 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
2980 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
2981 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
2982 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
2983 to argue its side.</p>
2984
2985 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
2986 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
2987 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
2988 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
2989
2990 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
2991 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
2992 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
2993
2994       </div>
2995       <div class="tags">
2996
2997
2998         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>.
2999
3000
3001       </div>
3002     </div>
3003     <div class="padding"></div>
3004
3005     <div class="entry">
3006       <div class="title">
3007         <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>
3008       </div>
3009       <div class="date">
3010          3rd October 2012
3011       </div>
3012       <div class="body">
3013         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
3014 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
3015 the computer science book collection available in his local
3016 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
3017 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
3018 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
3019 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
3020 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
3021 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
3022 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
3023 recently published books.</p>
3024
3025 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
3026 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
3027 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
3028 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
3029 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
3030 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
3031 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
3032 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
3033 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
3034 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
3035 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
3036 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
3037 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
3038 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
3039 for the library that evening.</p>
3040
3041 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
3042 going to know that for example
3043 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
3044 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
3045 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
3046 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
3047 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
3048 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
3049 book right away.</p>
3050
3051       </div>
3052       <div class="tags">
3053
3054
3055         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3056
3057
3058       </div>
3059     </div>
3060     <div class="padding"></div>
3061
3062     <div class="entry">
3063       <div class="title">
3064         <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>
3065       </div>
3066       <div class="date">
3067         23rd September 2012
3068       </div>
3069       <div class="body">
3070         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
3071 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
3072 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
3073 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
3074 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
3075 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
3076
3077 When I started, I
3078 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
3079 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
3080 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
3081 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
3082 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
3083 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
3084 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
3085
3086 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
3087
3088 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
3089 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
3090 the project files currently available from
3091 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
3092
3093 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
3094 the updated
3095 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
3096 and
3097 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
3098 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
3099 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
3100 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
3101
3102       </div>
3103       <div class="tags">
3104
3105
3106         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>.
3107
3108
3109       </div>
3110     </div>
3111     <div class="padding"></div>
3112
3113     <div class="entry">
3114       <div class="title">
3115         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
3116       </div>
3117       <div class="date">
3118         17th September 2012
3119       </div>
3120       <div class="body">
3121         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
3122 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
3123 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
3124 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
3125 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
3126 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
3127 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
3128
3129 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3130
3131 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
3132 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
3133 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
3134 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
3135 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
3136 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
3137 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
3138 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
3139 training is anyway very important</p>
3140
3141 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
3142 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
3143 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
3144 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
3145 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
3146
3147 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3148 project?</strong></p>
3149
3150 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
3151 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
3152 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
3153 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
3154 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
3155 hole.</p>
3156
3157 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3158 Edu?</strong></p>
3159
3160 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
3161 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
3162 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
3163 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
3164 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
3165 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
3166 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
3167 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
3168 hassle.</p>
3169
3170 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3171 Edu?</strong></p>
3172
3173 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
3174 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
3175 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
3176 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
3177 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
3178 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
3179 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
3180 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
3181
3182 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3183
3184 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
3185 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
3186 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
3187 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
3188 has the same...</p>
3189
3190 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
3191 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
3192 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
3193 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
3194
3195 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3196 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3197
3198 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
3199 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
3200 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
3201
3202 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
3203 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
3204 don't.</p>
3205
3206 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
3207 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
3208 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
3209 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
3210 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
3211 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
3212 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
3213
3214       </div>
3215       <div class="tags">
3216
3217
3218         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
3219
3220
3221       </div>
3222     </div>
3223     <div class="padding"></div>
3224
3225     <div class="entry">
3226       <div class="title">
3227         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
3228       </div>
3229       <div class="date">
3230         15th September 2012
3231       </div>
3232       <div class="body">
3233         <p>After the
3234 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
3235 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
3236 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
3237 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
3238 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
3239 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
3240 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
3241 was
3242 <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
3243 formal working group should be formed.</p>
3244
3245 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
3246 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
3247 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
3248 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
3249 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
3250 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
3251 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
3252 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
3253
3254 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
3255 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
3256 IETF.</p>
3257
3258       </div>
3259       <div class="tags">
3260
3261
3262         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>.
3263
3264
3265       </div>
3266     </div>
3267     <div class="padding"></div>
3268
3269     <div class="entry">
3270       <div class="title">
3271         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
3272       </div>
3273       <div class="date">
3274         12th September 2012
3275       </div>
3276       <div class="body">
3277         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
3278 publication of of
3279 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
3280 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
3281 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
3282 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
3283 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
3284 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
3285 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
3286 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
3287 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
3288 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
3289
3290 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
3291 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
3292 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
3293 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
3294
3295 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
3296 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
3297
3298       </div>
3299       <div class="tags">
3300
3301
3302         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>.
3303
3304
3305       </div>
3306     </div>
3307     <div class="padding"></div>
3308
3309     <div class="entry">
3310       <div class="title">
3311         <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>
3312       </div>
3313       <div class="date">
3314          7th September 2012
3315       </div>
3316       <div class="body">
3317         <p>As I
3318 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
3319 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
3320 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
3321 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
3322 repository for the project</a>.</p>
3323
3324 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
3325 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
3326 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
3327 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
3328
3329 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
3330 PostScript formats at
3331 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
3332 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
3333
3334       </div>
3335       <div class="tags">
3336
3337
3338         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>.
3339
3340
3341       </div>
3342     </div>
3343     <div class="padding"></div>
3344
3345     <div class="entry">
3346       <div class="title">
3347         <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>
3348       </div>
3349       <div class="date">
3350         23rd August 2012
3351       </div>
3352       <div class="body">
3353         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
3354 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
3355 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
3356 revisit the great site
3357 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
3358 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
3359 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
3360
3361       </div>
3362       <div class="tags">
3363
3364
3365         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>.
3366
3367
3368       </div>
3369     </div>
3370     <div class="padding"></div>
3371
3372     <div class="entry">
3373       <div class="title">
3374         <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>
3375       </div>
3376       <div class="date">
3377         17th August 2012
3378       </div>
3379       <div class="body">
3380         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
3381 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
3382 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
3383 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
3384 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
3385 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
3386 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
3387 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
3388 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
3389 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
3390 summer I
3391 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
3392 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
3393 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
3394
3395 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
3396 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
3397 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
3398 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
3399 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
3400 progress:</p>
3401
3402 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
3403
3404 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
3405 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
3406 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
3407 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
3408 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
3409 english version of the docbook source.</p>
3410
3411 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
3412 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
3413 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
3414 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
3415 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
3416 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
3417 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
3418 project files currently available from <a
3419 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
3420
3421 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
3422 the updated
3423 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
3424 and
3425 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
3426 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
3427 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
3428 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
3429
3430       </div>
3431       <div class="tags">
3432
3433
3434         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>.
3435
3436
3437       </div>
3438     </div>
3439     <div class="padding"></div>
3440
3441     <div class="entry">
3442       <div class="title">
3443         <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>
3444       </div>
3445       <div class="date">
3446         10th August 2012
3447       </div>
3448       <div class="body">
3449         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
3450 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
3451 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
3452 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
3453 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
3454 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
3455 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
3456 case for the language
3457 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
3458 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
3459
3460 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
3461 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
3462 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
3463 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
3464 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
3465
3466 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
3467 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
3468 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
3469 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
3470 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
3471 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
3472 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
3473 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
3474 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
3475 alias for 'nb'.</p>
3476
3477 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
3478 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
3479 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
3480 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
3481 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
3482 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
3483 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
3484 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
3485 at the same time. :(</p>
3486
3487 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
3488 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
3489 processors. :(</p>
3490
3491 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
3492
3493       </div>
3494       <div class="tags">
3495
3496
3497         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>.
3498
3499
3500       </div>
3501     </div>
3502     <div class="padding"></div>
3503
3504     <div class="entry">
3505       <div class="title">
3506         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
3507       </div>
3508       <div class="date">
3509         31st July 2012
3510       </div>
3511       <div class="body">
3512         <p>I tried to send this text to the
3513 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
3514 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
3515 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
3516 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
3517 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
3518 out.</p>
3519
3520 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
3521 learning curve at the moment.</p>
3522
3523 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
3524 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
3525 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
3526 available from
3527 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
3528 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
3529 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
3530 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
3531 Squeeze.</p>
3532
3533 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
3534 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
3535 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
3536 problems.</p>
3537
3538 <ul>
3539
3540 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
3541    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
3542    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
3543    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
3544    index references spanning several pages (See
3545    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
3546    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
3547    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
3548
3549 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
3550    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
3551    #683163</a>).</li>
3552
3553 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
3554    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
3555    footnote and text body, see
3556    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
3557    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
3558    refs listed are not right).</li>
3559
3560 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
3561
3562 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
3563    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
3564
3565 </ul>
3566
3567 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
3568 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
3569 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
3570
3571 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
3572
3573       </div>
3574       <div class="tags">
3575
3576
3577         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>.
3578
3579
3580       </div>
3581     </div>
3582     <div class="padding"></div>
3583
3584     <div class="entry">
3585       <div class="title">
3586         <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>
3587       </div>
3588       <div class="date">
3589         21st July 2012
3590       </div>
3591       <div class="body">
3592         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
3593 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
3594 norwegian version</a> of the book
3595 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
3596 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
3597 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
3598 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
3599 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
3600
3601 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
3602 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
3603 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
3604 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
3605 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
3606 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
3607 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
3608 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
3609 print. :)</p>
3610
3611 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
3612 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
3613 language.</p>
3614
3615       </div>
3616       <div class="tags">
3617
3618
3619         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>.
3620
3621
3622       </div>
3623     </div>
3624     <div class="padding"></div>
3625
3626     <div class="entry">
3627       <div class="title">
3628         <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>
3629       </div>
3630       <div class="date">
3631         16th July 2012
3632       </div>
3633       <div class="body">
3634         <p>I am currently working on a
3635 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
3636 to translate</a> the book
3637 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
3638 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
3639 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
3640 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
3641 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
3642 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
3643 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
3644
3645 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
3646 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
3647 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
3648 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
3649 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
3650 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
3651 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
3652 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
3653 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
3654
3655       </div>
3656       <div class="tags">
3657
3658
3659         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>.
3660
3661
3662       </div>
3663     </div>
3664     <div class="padding"></div>
3665
3666     <div class="entry">
3667       <div class="title">
3668         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
3669       </div>
3670       <div class="date">
3671          9th July 2012
3672       </div>
3673       <div class="body">
3674         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
3675 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
3676 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
3677 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
3678 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
3679 to adjust and scale the just released
3680 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
3681 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
3682 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
3683
3684 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3685
3686 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
3687 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
3688 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
3689 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
3690 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
3691 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
3692 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
3693 perspective when working with IT.</p>
3694
3695 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3696 project?</strong></p>
3697
3698 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
3699 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
3700 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
3701 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
3702 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
3703 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
3704
3705 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3706 Edu?</strong></p>
3707
3708 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
3709 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
3710 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
3711 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
3712 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
3713 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
3714 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
3715 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
3716 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
3717 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
3718 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
3719 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
3720 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
3721 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
3722 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
3723 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
3724 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
3725 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
3726 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
3727 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
3728 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
3729 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
3730 quicker to update.
3731
3732 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3733 Edu?</strong></p>
3734
3735 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
3736 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
3737 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
3738 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
3739 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
3740 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
3741
3742 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
3743 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
3744 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
3745 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
3746 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
3747 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
3748 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
3749 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
3750 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
3751 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
3752 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
3753 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
3754 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
3755 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
3756 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
3757
3758 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
3759 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
3760 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
3761 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
3762 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
3763 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
3764 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
3765 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
3766
3767 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
3768 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
3769 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
3770 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
3771 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
3772 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
3773 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
3774 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
3775 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
3776 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
3777 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
3778 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
3779 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
3780 sound file.</p>
3781
3782 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
3783 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
3784 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
3785 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
3786 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
3787 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
3788 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
3789 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
3790 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
3791
3792 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3793
3794 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
3795 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
3796 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
3797 )</p>
3798
3799 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3800 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3801
3802 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
3803 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
3804 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
3805 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
3806 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
3807 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
3808 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
3809 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
3810 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
3811 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
3812 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
3813 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
3814 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
3815 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
3816 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
3817
3818 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
3819 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
3820 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
3821 management with Airtime</a>,
3822 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
3823 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
3824 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
3825 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
3826 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
3827
3828       </div>
3829       <div class="tags">
3830
3831
3832         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
3833
3834
3835       </div>
3836     </div>
3837     <div class="padding"></div>
3838
3839     <div class="entry">
3840       <div class="title">
3841         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
3842       </div>
3843       <div class="date">
3844          8th July 2012
3845       </div>
3846       <div class="body">
3847         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
3848 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
3849 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
3850 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
3851 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
3852 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
3853 Steinberg in his blog post
3854 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
3855 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
3856 spending of your tax money.</p>
3857
3858 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
3859 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
3860 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
3861 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
3862 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
3863 purchases.</p>
3864
3865       </div>
3866       <div class="tags">
3867
3868
3869         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3870
3871
3872       </div>
3873     </div>
3874     <div class="padding"></div>
3875
3876     <div class="entry">
3877       <div class="title">
3878         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
3879       </div>
3880       <div class="date">
3881          7th July 2012
3882       </div>
3883       <div class="body">
3884         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
3885 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
3886 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
3887 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
3888 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
3889 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
3890 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
3891 receive.  The software is
3892
3893 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
3894 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
3895 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
3896 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
3897 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
3898 Windows</a>.</p>
3899
3900 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
3901 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
3902
3903 <p><ul>
3904
3905   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
3906     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
3907
3908   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
3909     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
3910     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
3911     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
3912     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
3913     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
3914     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
3915     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
3916     </li>
3917
3918   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
3919     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
3920
3921   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
3922     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
3923
3924   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
3925     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
3926
3927   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
3928
3929   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
3930     formats </li>
3931
3932   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
3933     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
3934     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
3935     (as separate sets)</li>
3936
3937   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
3938     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
3939     percentage)</li>
3940
3941   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
3942     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
3943     memory):
3944     <ul>
3945       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
3946       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
3947       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
3948       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
3949       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
3950       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
3951       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
3952       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
3953       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
3954       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
3955           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
3956           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
3957           activity)</li>
3958       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
3959       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
3960     </ul></li>
3961
3962   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
3963     <ul>
3964       <li>Break periods</li>
3965       <li>For teacher(s):
3966         <ul>
3967           <li>Not available periods</li>
3968           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
3969           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
3970           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
3971           <li>Min hours daily</li>
3972           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
3973
3974           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
3975             days per week</li>
3976         </ul></li>
3977       <li>For students (sets):
3978         <ul>
3979           <li>Not available periods</li>
3980           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
3981           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
3982           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
3983           <li>Min hours daily</li>
3984           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
3985
3986           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
3987             days per week</li>
3988         </ul></li>
3989       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
3990         <ul>
3991           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
3992           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
3993           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
3994           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
3995           <li>End(s) students day</li>
3996           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
3997           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
3998             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
3999           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
4000           <li>Not overlapping</li>
4001           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
4002           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
4003         </ul></li>
4004     </ul></li>
4005
4006   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
4007     <ul>
4008       <li>Room not available periods</li>
4009       <li>For teacher(s):
4010         <ul>
4011           <li>Home room(s)</li>
4012           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
4013           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
4014         </ul>
4015       </li>
4016
4017       <li>For students (sets):
4018         <ul>
4019           <li>Home room(s)</li>
4020           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
4021           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
4022         </ul>
4023       </li>
4024       <li>Preferred room(s):
4025         <ul>
4026           <li>For a subject</li>
4027           <li>For an activity tag</li>
4028           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
4029           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
4030         </ul>
4031       </li>
4032
4033       <li>For a set of activities:
4034         <ul>
4035           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
4036         </ul>
4037       </li>
4038     </ul>
4039   </li>
4040 </ul></p>
4041
4042 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
4043 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
4044 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
4045 manually, check it out.
4046
4047 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
4048 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
4049 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
4050 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
4051 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
4052 section</a>.</p>
4053
4054       </div>
4055       <div class="tags">
4056
4057
4058         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4059
4060
4061       </div>
4062     </div>
4063     <div class="padding"></div>
4064
4065     <div class="entry">
4066       <div class="title">
4067         <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>
4068       </div>
4069       <div class="date">
4070          3rd July 2012
4071       </div>
4072       <div class="body">
4073         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
4074 project (Norwegian version of
4075 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
4076 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
4077 a problem with the municipalities using
4078 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
4079 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
4080 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
4081 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
4082 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
4083 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
4084 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
4085 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
4086 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
4087 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
4088 the From: header.</p>
4089
4090 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
4091 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
4092 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
4093 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
4094 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
4095 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
4096 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
4097 behaviour.</p>
4098
4099 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
4100 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
4101 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
4102 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
4103 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
4104 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
4105 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
4106
4107       </div>
4108       <div class="tags">
4109
4110
4111         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>.
4112
4113
4114       </div>
4115     </div>
4116     <div class="padding"></div>
4117
4118     <div class="entry">
4119       <div class="title">
4120         <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>
4121       </div>
4122       <div class="date">
4123         26th June 2012
4124       </div>
4125       <div class="body">
4126         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
4127 another interview with the people behind
4128 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
4129 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
4130 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
4131 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
4132 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
4133 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
4134 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
4135
4136 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4137
4138 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
4139 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
4140 ICT in schools</p>
4141
4142 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4143 project?</strong></p>
4144
4145 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
4146 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
4147 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
4148 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
4149
4150 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4151 Edu?</strong></p>
4152
4153 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
4154 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
4155 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
4156 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
4157
4158 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4159 Edu?</strong></p>
4160
4161 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
4162 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
4163 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
4164 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
4165 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
4166 technologies in school.</p>
4167
4168 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4169
4170 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
4171 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
4172 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
4173
4174 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4175 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4176
4177 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
4178 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
4179 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
4180 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
4181
4182 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
4183 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
4184 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
4185
4186 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
4187 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
4188 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
4189 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
4190 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
4191 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
4192 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
4193 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
4194 working there.</p>
4195
4196       </div>
4197       <div class="tags">
4198
4199
4200         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4201
4202
4203       </div>
4204     </div>
4205     <div class="padding"></div>
4206
4207     <div class="entry">
4208       <div class="title">
4209         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
4210       </div>
4211       <div class="date">
4212         24th June 2012
4213       </div>
4214       <div class="body">
4215         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
4216 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
4217 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
4218 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
4219 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
4220 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
4221 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
4222 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
4223 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
4224 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
4225 missing in my book.</p>
4226
4227 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
4228 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
4229 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
4230 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
4231 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
4232 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
4233 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
4234
4235       </div>
4236       <div class="tags">
4237
4238
4239         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>.
4240
4241
4242       </div>
4243     </div>
4244     <div class="padding"></div>
4245
4246     <div class="entry">
4247       <div class="title">
4248         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___some_ideas_for_the_future_versions.html">Debian Edu - some ideas for the future versions</a>
4249       </div>
4250       <div class="date">
4251         11th June 2012
4252       </div>
4253       <div class="body">
4254         <p>During my work on
4255 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
4256 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
4257 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
4258 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
4259 explanation.</p>
4260
4261 <p><ul>
4262
4263 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
4264 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
4265 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
4266 system depend on tasksel tasks in
4267 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
4268 installation.</li>
4269
4270 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
4271 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
4272 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
4273 at least try to enable it for these services:
4274 <ul>
4275
4276   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
4277     quotas.</li>
4278   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
4279   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
4280   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
4281   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
4282   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
4283
4284 </ul></li>
4285
4286 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
4287 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
4288 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
4289 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
4290
4291 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
4292 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
4293 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
4294
4295 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
4296 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
4297 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
4298 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
4299 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
4300 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
4301
4302 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
4303 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
4304 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
4305 in Wheezy.
4306
4307 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
4308 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
4309 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
4310
4311 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
4312 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
4313 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
4314 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
4315
4316 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
4317 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
4318 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
4319 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
4320
4321 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
4322 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
4323 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
4324
4325 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
4326 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
4327 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
4328
4329 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
4330 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
4331 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
4332 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
4333 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
4334
4335 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
4336 <ul>
4337
4338 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
4339 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
4340 <li>and probably more?</li>
4341 </ul></li>
4342
4343 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
4344 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
4345 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
4346 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
4347 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
4348 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
4349 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
4350 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
4351
4352
4353 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
4354 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
4355 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
4356 use.</li>
4357
4358 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
4359 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
4360 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
4361 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
4362 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
4363
4364 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
4365 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
4366 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
4367 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
4368 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
4369 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
4370
4371 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
4372 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
4373 There are at least three implementations,
4374 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
4375 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
4376 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
4377 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
4378 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
4379 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
4380 given room.</li>
4381
4382 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
4383 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
4384 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
4385 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
4386 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
4387 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
4388 investigated.</li>
4389
4390 </ul></p>
4391
4392 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
4393 version.</p>
4394
4395       </div>
4396       <div class="tags">
4397
4398
4399         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4400
4401
4402       </div>
4403     </div>
4404     <div class="padding"></div>
4405
4406     <div class="entry">
4407       <div class="title">
4408         <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>
4409       </div>
4410       <div class="date">
4411          9th June 2012
4412       </div>
4413       <div class="body">
4414         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
4415 <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
4416 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
4417 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
4418 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
4419 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
4420 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
4421 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
4422 be willing to pay for.</p>
4423
4424 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
4425 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
4426 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
4427 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
4428 Orwell</a>.</p>
4429
4430       </div>
4431       <div class="tags">
4432
4433
4434         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>.
4435
4436
4437       </div>
4438     </div>
4439     <div class="padding"></div>
4440
4441     <div class="entry">
4442       <div class="title">
4443         <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>
4444       </div>
4445       <div class="date">
4446          6th June 2012
4447       </div>
4448       <div class="body">
4449         <p>A few days ago
4450 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
4451 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
4452 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
4453 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
4454 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
4455 code for HP, Dell and IBM
4456 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
4457 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
4458 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
4459 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
4460 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
4461
4462 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
4463 output:
4464
4465 <blockquote><pre>
4466 % 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>
4467 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": ""})
4468 %
4469 </pre></blockquote>
4470
4471 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
4472 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
4473 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
4474
4475       </div>
4476       <div class="tags">
4477
4478
4479         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>.
4480
4481
4482       </div>
4483     </div>
4484     <div class="padding"></div>
4485
4486     <div class="entry">
4487       <div class="title">
4488         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
4489       </div>
4490       <div class="date">
4491          2nd June 2012
4492       </div>
4493       <div class="body">
4494         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
4495 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
4496 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
4497 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
4498 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
4499 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
4500
4501 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4502
4503 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
4504 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
4505 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
4506 by Angela).</p>
4507
4508 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
4509 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
4510 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
4511 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
4512 becoming an osteopath.</p>
4513
4514 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
4515 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
4516 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
4517 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
4518 skills with communication skills.</p>
4519
4520 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4521 project?</strong></p>
4522
4523 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
4524 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
4525 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
4526 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
4527 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
4528
4529 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
4530 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
4531 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
4532 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
4533 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
4534 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
4535 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
4536 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
4537 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
4538
4539 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
4540 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
4541 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
4542
4543 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
4544
4545 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
4546 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
4547 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
4548 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
4549 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
4550 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
4551 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
4552 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
4553 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
4554 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
4555 point.</p>
4556
4557 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
4558 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
4559 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
4560 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
4561 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
4562 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
4563
4564 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
4565 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
4566 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
4567 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
4568 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
4569 spare time.</p>
4570
4571 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
4572 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
4573 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
4574 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
4575 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
4576
4577 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
4578 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
4579 avoidance do exist.</p>
4580
4581 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
4582 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
4583 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
4584 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
4585 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
4586 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
4587 and probably a gain for all.</p>
4588
4589 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4590 Edu?</strong></p>
4591
4592 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
4593 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
4594 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
4595 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
4596 project communication, honest communication within the group of
4597 developers, etc.</p>
4598
4599 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4600 Edu?</strong></p>
4601
4602 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
4603
4604 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
4605 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
4606 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
4607 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
4608 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
4609 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
4610 contribute).</p>
4611
4612 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
4613 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
4614 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
4615 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
4616 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
4617 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
4618 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
4619 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
4620 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
4621 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
4622
4623 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4624
4625 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
4626
4627 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
4628 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
4629 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
4630
4631 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
4632 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
4633 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
4634 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
4635
4636 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
4637 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
4638 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
4639 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
4640 whiteboard.</p>
4641
4642 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
4643
4644 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4645 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4646
4647 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
4648 enrol people.</p>
4649
4650       </div>
4651       <div class="tags">
4652
4653
4654         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4655
4656
4657       </div>
4658     </div>
4659     <div class="padding"></div>
4660
4661     <div class="entry">
4662       <div class="title">
4663         <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>
4664       </div>
4665       <div class="date">
4666          1st June 2012
4667       </div>
4668       <div class="body">
4669         <p>A few years ago I wrote
4670 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
4671 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
4672 I have learned from colleges here at the
4673 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
4674 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
4675 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
4676 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
4677 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
4678
4679 <p><pre>
4680 use strict;
4681 use warnings;
4682 use SOAP::Lite;
4683 use Data::Dumper;
4684 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
4685 my $App = 'test';
4686 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
4687 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
4688 my $s = SOAP::Lite
4689     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
4690     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
4691     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
4692     ;
4693 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
4694     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
4695     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
4696     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
4697 );
4698 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
4699 </pre></p>
4700
4701 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
4702
4703 <p><pre>
4704 $VAR1 = {
4705           'Asset' => {
4706                      'Entitlements' => {
4707                                        'EntitlementData' => [
4708                                                             {
4709                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
4710                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
4711                                                               'Provider' => '',
4712                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
4713                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
4714                                                             },
4715                                                             {
4716                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
4717                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
4718                                                               'Provider' => '',
4719                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
4720                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
4721                                                             },
4722                                                             {
4723                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
4724                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
4725                                                               'Provider' => '',
4726                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
4727                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
4728                                                             }
4729                                                           ]
4730                                      },
4731                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
4732                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
4733                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
4734                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
4735                                           'Buid' => '2323',
4736                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
4737                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
4738                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
4739                                         }
4740                    }
4741         };
4742 </pre></p>
4743
4744 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
4745 service outside the
4746 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
4747 documentation</a>, and according to
4748 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
4749 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
4750 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
4751
4752 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
4753 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
4754
4755       </div>
4756       <div class="tags">
4757
4758
4759         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>.
4760
4761
4762       </div>
4763     </div>
4764     <div class="padding"></div>
4765
4766     <div class="entry">
4767       <div class="title">
4768         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
4769       </div>
4770       <div class="date">
4771         31st May 2012
4772       </div>
4773       <div class="body">
4774         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
4775 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
4776 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
4777 running Debian Squeeze, where
4778 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
4779 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
4780 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
4781 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
4782 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
4783 another day.</p>
4784
4785 <p>After calibration, I get a
4786 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
4787 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
4788 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
4789 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
4790 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
4791 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
4792 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
4793 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
4794 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
4795 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
4796 and a simple</p>
4797
4798 <p><pre>
4799 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
4800 </pre></p>
4801
4802 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
4803 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
4804 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
4805 enough for now.</p>
4806
4807       </div>
4808       <div class="tags">
4809
4810
4811         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4812
4813
4814       </div>
4815     </div>
4816     <div class="padding"></div>
4817
4818     <div class="entry">
4819       <div class="title">
4820         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
4821       </div>
4822       <div class="date">
4823         27th May 2012
4824       </div>
4825       <div class="body">
4826         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
4827 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
4828 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
4829 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
4830 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
4831 since then, helping to make sure the
4832 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
4833 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
4834
4835 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4836
4837 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
4838 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
4839 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
4840 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
4841 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
4842 our computer network.</p>
4843
4844 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
4845 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
4846 (4 months).</p>
4847
4848 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4849 project?</strong></p>
4850
4851 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
4852 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
4853 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
4854 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
4855 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
4856 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
4857 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
4858 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
4859 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
4860 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
4861 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
4862 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
4863 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
4864 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
4865
4866 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4867 Edu?</strong></p>
4868
4869 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
4870 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
4871 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
4872 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
4873 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
4874 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
4875 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
4876 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
4877
4878 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4879 Edu?</strong></p>
4880
4881 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
4882 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
4883 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
4884 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
4885 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
4886 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
4887 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
4888 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
4889 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
4890 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
4891 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
4892 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
4893
4894 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4895
4896 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
4897 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
4898 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
4899
4900 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4901 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4902
4903 <p><ol>
4904
4905 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
4906 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
4907 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
4908 developing.</li>
4909
4910 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
4911 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
4912 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
4913 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
4914 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
4915
4916 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
4917 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
4918 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
4919
4920 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
4921 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
4922 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
4923 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
4924
4925 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
4926 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
4927 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
4928
4929 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
4930
4931 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
4932 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
4933 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
4934 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
4935
4936 </ol></p>
4937
4938       </div>
4939       <div class="tags">
4940
4941
4942         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4943
4944
4945       </div>
4946     </div>
4947     <div class="padding"></div>
4948
4949     <div class="entry">
4950       <div class="title">
4951         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
4952       </div>
4953       <div class="date">
4954         26th May 2012
4955       </div>
4956       <div class="body">
4957         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
4958 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
4959 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
4960 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
4961 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
4962
4963 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
4964 <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>
4965 comment:</p>
4966
4967 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
4968 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
4969 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
4970 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
4971 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
4972 </blockquote></p>
4973
4974 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
4975 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
4976 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
4977 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
4978 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
4979 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
4980 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
4981 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
4982 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
4983 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
4984 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
4985 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
4986 of wasted effort.</p>
4987
4988 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
4989 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
4990 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
4991
4992 <p>See
4993 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
4994 and
4995 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
4996 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
4997 </blockquote></p>
4998
4999       </div>
5000       <div class="tags">
5001
5002
5003         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>.
5004
5005
5006       </div>
5007     </div>
5008     <div class="padding"></div>
5009
5010     <div class="entry">
5011       <div class="title">
5012         <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>
5013       </div>
5014       <div class="date">
5015         18th May 2012
5016       </div>
5017       <div class="body">
5018         <p>In january, I
5019 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
5020 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
5021 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
5022 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
5023 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
5024 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
5025 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
5026 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
5027 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
5028 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
5029
5030 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
5031 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
5032 drivers. :)</p>
5033
5034       </div>
5035       <div class="tags">
5036
5037
5038         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5039
5040
5041       </div>
5042     </div>
5043     <div class="padding"></div>
5044
5045     <div class="entry">
5046       <div class="title">
5047         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
5048       </div>
5049       <div class="date">
5050         13th May 2012
5051       </div>
5052       <div class="body">
5053         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
5054 publish another interview with the people behind
5055 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
5056 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
5057 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
5058 details get right before release.
5059
5060 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5061
5062 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
5063 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
5064 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
5065 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
5066 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
5067 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
5068 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
5069 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
5070
5071 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
5072 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
5073 home since 2006.</p>
5074
5075 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
5076 project?</strong></p>
5077
5078 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
5079 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
5080 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
5081 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
5082 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
5083 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
5084
5085 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
5086 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
5087 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
5088 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
5089 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
5090 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
5091 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
5092 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
5093 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
5094 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
5095 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
5096 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
5097 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
5098 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
5099 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
5100 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
5101
5102 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5103 Edu?</strong></p>
5104
5105 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
5106 for me as today.</p>
5107
5108 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
5109
5110 <p><ul>
5111
5112 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
5113 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
5114
5115 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
5116 cost.</li>
5117
5118 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
5119 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
5120 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
5121 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
5122 server</li>
5123
5124 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
5125 school.</li>
5126
5127 </ul></p>
5128
5129 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
5130 came up in this way:</p>
5131
5132 <p><ul>
5133
5134 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
5135 now.</li>
5136
5137 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
5138 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
5139 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
5140
5141 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
5142 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
5143 interfaces used in the past.</li>
5144
5145 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
5146 different needs.</li>
5147
5148 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
5149
5150 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
5151 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
5152 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
5153
5154 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
5155 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
5156
5157 </ul></p>
5158
5159 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5160 Edu?</strong></p>
5161
5162 <p><ul>
5163
5164 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
5165 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
5166 whole municipality areas.</li>
5167
5168 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
5169 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
5170 politicians.</li>
5171
5172 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
5173
5174 </ul></p>
5175
5176 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5177
5178 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
5179 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
5180 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
5181 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
5182 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
5183 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
5184
5185 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
5186 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
5187 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
5188 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
5189 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
5190
5191 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5192 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5193
5194 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
5195 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
5196 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
5197
5198       </div>
5199       <div class="tags">
5200
5201
5202         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
5203
5204
5205       </div>
5206     </div>
5207     <div class="padding"></div>
5208
5209     <div class="entry">
5210       <div class="title">
5211         <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>
5212       </div>
5213       <div class="date">
5214         30th April 2012
5215       </div>
5216       <div class="body">
5217         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
5218 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
5219
5220 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
5221 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
5222 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
5223 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
5224 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
5225 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
5226 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
5227 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
5228 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
5229 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
5230 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
5231 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
5232 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
5233 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
5234 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
5235 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
5236
5237 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
5238 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
5239 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
5240 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
5241 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
5242 finally found a Danish supplier
5243 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
5244 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
5245 days ago.</p>
5246
5247 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
5248 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
5249 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
5250 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
5251 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
5252 toys.</p>
5253
5254       </div>
5255       <div class="tags">
5256
5257
5258         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5259
5260
5261       </div>
5262     </div>
5263     <div class="padding"></div>
5264
5265     <div class="entry">
5266       <div class="title">
5267         <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>
5268       </div>
5269       <div class="date">
5270         26th April 2012
5271       </div>
5272       <div class="body">
5273         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
5274 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
5275 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
5276 that the video editor application included with
5277 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
5278 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
5279 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
5280
5281 <p><blockquote>
5282 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
5283 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
5284 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
5285 </blockquote></p>
5286
5287 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
5288
5289 <p><blockquote>
5290 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
5291 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
5292 </blockquote></p>
5293
5294 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
5295 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
5296 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
5297 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
5298 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
5299 video.  AMR is
5300 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
5301 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
5302 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
5303 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
5304 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
5305 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
5306 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
5307
5308 <p>I know why I prefer
5309 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
5310 standards</a> also for video.</p>
5311
5312       </div>
5313       <div class="tags">
5314
5315
5316         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>.
5317
5318
5319       </div>
5320     </div>
5321     <div class="padding"></div>
5322
5323     <div class="entry">
5324       <div class="title">
5325         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
5326       </div>
5327       <div class="date">
5328         19th April 2012
5329       </div>
5330       <div class="body">
5331         <p>Here in Norway, the
5332 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
5333 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
5334 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
5335 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
5336 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
5337 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
5338 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
5339 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
5340 on the same level.</p>
5341
5342 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
5343 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
5344 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
5345 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
5346 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
5347 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
5348 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
5349 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
5350 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
5351 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
5352 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
5353 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
5354 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
5355 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
5356 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
5357 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
5358 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
5359 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
5360
5361 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
5362 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
5363 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
5364 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
5365 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
5366 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
5367 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
5368 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
5369
5370 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
5371 from Simon Phipps
5372 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
5373 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
5374
5375 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
5376 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
5377 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
5378 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
5379 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
5380 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
5381 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
5382 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
5383 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
5384
5385       </div>
5386       <div class="tags">
5387
5388
5389         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>.
5390
5391
5392       </div>
5393     </div>
5394     <div class="padding"></div>
5395
5396     <div class="entry">
5397       <div class="title">
5398         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
5399       </div>
5400       <div class="date">
5401         15th April 2012
5402       </div>
5403       <div class="body">
5404         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
5405 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
5406 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
5407 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
5408 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
5409 up in the recently released
5410 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
5411 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
5412
5413 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5414
5415 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
5416 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
5417 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
5418 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
5419 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
5420 information technology and science/technology.</p>
5421
5422 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
5423 project?</strong></p>
5424
5425 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
5426 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
5427 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
5428 contributing.</p>
5429
5430 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5431 Edu?</strong></p>
5432
5433 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
5434 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
5435 Debian Project!</p>
5436
5437 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5438 Edu?</strong></p>
5439
5440 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
5441 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
5442 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
5443 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
5444 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
5445 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
5446 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
5447
5448 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
5449 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
5450
5451 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5452
5453 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
5454 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
5455 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
5456 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
5457
5458 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5459 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5460
5461 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
5462 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
5463 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
5464 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
5465 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
5466 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
5467 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
5468
5469 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
5470 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
5471 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
5472 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
5473 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
5474 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
5475 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
5476 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
5477
5478       </div>
5479       <div class="tags">
5480
5481
5482         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
5483
5484
5485       </div>
5486     </div>
5487     <div class="padding"></div>
5488
5489     <div class="entry">
5490       <div class="title">
5491         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
5492       </div>
5493       <div class="date">
5494          8th April 2012
5495       </div>
5496       <div class="body">
5497         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
5498 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
5499 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
5500 contributor to the
5501 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
5502 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
5503
5504 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5505
5506 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
5507 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
5508
5509 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
5510 project?</strong></p>
5511
5512 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
5513 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
5514 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
5515 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
5516 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
5517 "localisation".</p>
5518
5519 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5520 Edu?</strong></p>
5521
5522 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5523 Edu?</strong></p>
5524
5525 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
5526 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
5527 education system.</p>
5528
5529 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
5530 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
5531 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
5532 money on the latest hardware.</p>
5533
5534 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5535
5536 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
5537 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
5538 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
5539
5540 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5541 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5542
5543 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
5544 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
5545 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
5546
5547       </div>
5548       <div class="tags">
5549
5550
5551         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
5552
5553
5554       </div>
5555     </div>
5556     <div class="padding"></div>
5557
5558     <div class="entry">
5559       <div class="title">
5560         <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>
5561       </div>
5562       <div class="date">
5563          6th April 2012
5564       </div>
5565       <div class="body">
5566         <p>Recently I have spent time with
5567 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
5568 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
5569 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
5570 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
5571 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
5572 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
5573 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
5574 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
5575
5576 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
5577 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
5578 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
5579 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
5580 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
5581 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
5582 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
5583 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
5584
5585 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
5586 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
5587 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
5588 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
5589 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
5590 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
5591 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
5592 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
5593
5594 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
5595 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
5596 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
5597 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
5598 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
5599 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
5600 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
5601 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
5602 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
5603 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
5604
5605 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
5606 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
5607 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
5608 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
5609
5610 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
5611 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
5612
5613       </div>
5614       <div class="tags">
5615
5616
5617         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5618
5619
5620       </div>
5621     </div>
5622     <div class="padding"></div>
5623
5624     <div class="entry">
5625       <div class="title">
5626         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
5627       </div>
5628       <div class="date">
5629          5th April 2012
5630       </div>
5631       <div class="body">
5632         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
5633 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
5634 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
5635 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
5636 for schools.  Check out his article
5637 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
5638 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
5639
5640       </div>
5641       <div class="tags">
5642
5643
5644         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5645
5646
5647       </div>
5648     </div>
5649     <div class="padding"></div>
5650
5651     <div class="entry">
5652       <div class="title">
5653         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
5654       </div>
5655       <div class="date">
5656          1st April 2012
5657       </div>
5658       <div class="body">
5659         <p>Germany is a core area for the
5660 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
5661 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
5662 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
5663
5664 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5665
5666 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
5667 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
5668 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
5669 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
5670 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
5671 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
5672 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
5673 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
5674
5675 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
5676 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
5677 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
5678 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
5679 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
5680 the end of April this year.</p>
5681
5682 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
5683 project?</strong></p>
5684
5685 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
5686 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
5687 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
5688 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
5689 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
5690 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
5691 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
5692 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
5693 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
5694 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
5695 Skolelinux.</p>
5696
5697 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
5698 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
5699 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
5700 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
5701 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
5702 the admin teachers.</p>
5703
5704 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5705 Edu?</strong></p>
5706
5707 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
5708 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
5709 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
5710
5711 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
5712 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
5713 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
5714 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
5715 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
5716
5717 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5718 Edu?</strong></p>
5719
5720 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
5721
5722 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5723
5724 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
5725 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
5726 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
5727 LibreOffice.</p>
5728
5729 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5730 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5731
5732 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
5733 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
5734 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
5735
5736       </div>
5737       <div class="tags">
5738
5739
5740         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
5741
5742
5743       </div>
5744     </div>
5745     <div class="padding"></div>
5746
5747     <div class="entry">
5748       <div class="title">
5749         <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>
5750       </div>
5751       <div class="date">
5752         25th March 2012
5753       </div>
5754       <div class="body">
5755         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
5756
5757 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
5758 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
5759 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
5760 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
5761 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
5762 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
5763 and download as a
5764 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
5765 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
5766
5767 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
5768   <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"' />
5769     <p>Download video as
5770       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
5771 </video></p>
5772
5773       </div>
5774       <div class="tags">
5775
5776
5777         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5778
5779
5780       </div>
5781     </div>
5782     <div class="padding"></div>
5783
5784     <div class="entry">
5785       <div class="title">
5786         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
5787       </div>
5788       <div class="date">
5789         19th March 2012
5790       </div>
5791       <div class="body">
5792         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
5793 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
5794 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
5795 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
5796 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
5797
5798 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5799
5800 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
5801 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
5802 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
5803 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
5804 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
5805 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
5806 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
5807 installations.</p>
5808
5809 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
5810 project?</strong></p>
5811
5812 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
5813 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
5814 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
5815 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
5816 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
5817 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
5818 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
5819 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
5820 these things we decided to try it.</p>
5821
5822 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5823 Edu?</strong></p>
5824
5825 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
5826 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
5827 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
5828 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
5829 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
5830 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
5831 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
5832 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
5833
5834 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5835 Edu?</strong></p>
5836
5837 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
5838 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
5839 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
5840 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
5841 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
5842
5843 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5844
5845 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
5846 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
5847 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
5848 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
5849 that counts...)</p>
5850
5851 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5852 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5853
5854 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
5855 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
5856 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
5857 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
5858 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
5859 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
5860 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
5861 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
5862 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
5863 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
5864 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
5865
5866 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
5867 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
5868 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
5869
5870       </div>
5871       <div class="tags">
5872
5873
5874         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
5875
5876
5877       </div>
5878     </div>
5879     <div class="padding"></div>
5880
5881     <div class="entry">
5882       <div class="title">
5883         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
5884       </div>
5885       <div class="date">
5886         16th March 2012
5887       </div>
5888       <div class="body">
5889         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
5890 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
5891 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
5892 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
5893
5894 <ol>
5895
5896 <li>The documentation is written in a
5897 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
5898 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
5899 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
5900 docbook XML.</li>
5901
5902 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
5903 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
5904 with the translated text.</li>
5905
5906 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
5907 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
5908 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
5909 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
5910 images.</li>
5911
5912 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
5913 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
5914
5915 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
5916 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
5917
5918 </ol>
5919
5920 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
5921 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
5922 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
5923 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
5924 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
5925
5926 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
5927 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
5928 package</a>.</p>
5929
5930       </div>
5931       <div class="tags">
5932
5933
5934         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5935
5936
5937       </div>
5938     </div>
5939     <div class="padding"></div>
5940
5941     <div class="entry">
5942       <div class="title">
5943         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
5944       </div>
5945       <div class="date">
5946         11th March 2012
5947       </div>
5948       <div class="body">
5949         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
5950 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
5951 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
5952 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
5953 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
5954 you have not done so already.</p>
5955
5956 <p>I plan to present the new version at
5957 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
5958 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
5959 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
5960
5961       </div>
5962       <div class="tags">
5963
5964
5965         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5966
5967
5968       </div>
5969     </div>
5970     <div class="padding"></div>
5971
5972     <div class="entry">
5973       <div class="title">
5974         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
5975       </div>
5976       <div class="date">
5977          9th March 2012
5978       </div>
5979       <div class="body">
5980         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
5981 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
5982 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5983 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
5984 more international audience.</p>
5985
5986 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
5987 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
5988 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
5989 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
5990 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
5991 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
5992 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
5993
5994
5995 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5996
5997 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
5998 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
5999 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
6000 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
6001 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
6002 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
6003 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
6004 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
6005 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
6006 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
6007 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
6008
6009 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
6010 project?</strong></p>
6011
6012 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
6013 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
6014 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
6015 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
6016 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
6017 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
6018 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
6019 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
6020 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
6021 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
6022 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
6023 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
6024 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
6025
6026 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6027 Edu?</strong></p>
6028
6029 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
6030 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
6031 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
6032 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
6033 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
6034 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
6035 Japan.</p>
6036
6037 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6038 Edu?</strong></p>
6039
6040 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
6041 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
6042 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
6043 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
6044 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
6045 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
6046 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
6047 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
6048 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
6049 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
6050 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
6051 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
6052 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
6053 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
6054 help.</p>
6055
6056 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6057
6058 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
6059 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
6060 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
6061 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
6062 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
6063 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
6064 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
6065 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
6066 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
6067 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
6068 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
6069
6070 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6071 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6072
6073 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
6074 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
6075 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
6076 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
6077 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
6078 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
6079 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
6080 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
6081 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
6082 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
6083 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
6084 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
6085
6086       </div>
6087       <div class="tags">
6088
6089
6090         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6091
6092
6093       </div>
6094     </div>
6095     <div class="padding"></div>
6096
6097     <div class="entry">
6098       <div class="title">
6099         <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>
6100       </div>
6101       <div class="date">
6102          7th March 2012
6103       </div>
6104       <div class="body">
6105         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
6106
6107 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
6108 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
6109 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
6110 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
6111 download as a
6112 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
6113 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
6114
6115 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
6116   <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"' />
6117     <p>Download video as
6118       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
6119 </video></p>
6120
6121       </div>
6122       <div class="tags">
6123
6124
6125         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6126
6127
6128       </div>
6129     </div>
6130     <div class="padding"></div>
6131
6132     <div class="entry">
6133       <div class="title">
6134         <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>
6135       </div>
6136       <div class="date">
6137          4th March 2012
6138       </div>
6139       <div class="body">
6140         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
6141 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
6142 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
6143 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
6144 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
6145 need a software solution for your school.</p>
6146
6147       </div>
6148       <div class="tags">
6149
6150
6151         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6152
6153
6154       </div>
6155     </div>
6156     <div class="padding"></div>
6157
6158     <div class="entry">
6159       <div class="title">
6160         <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>
6161       </div>
6162       <div class="date">
6163          3rd March 2012
6164       </div>
6165       <div class="body">
6166         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
6167 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
6168 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
6169 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
6170 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
6171 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
6172 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
6173 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
6174 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
6175 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
6176 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
6177 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
6178 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
6179 year...</p>
6180
6181 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
6182 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
6183 name,
6184 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
6185 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
6186 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
6187 mean). I've been following
6188 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
6189 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
6190 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
6191 Check it out. :)</p>
6192
6193       </div>
6194       <div class="tags">
6195
6196
6197         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6198
6199
6200       </div>
6201     </div>
6202     <div class="padding"></div>
6203
6204     <div class="entry">
6205       <div class="title">
6206         <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>
6207       </div>
6208       <div class="date">
6209         27th February 2012
6210       </div>
6211       <div class="body">
6212         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
6213 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
6214 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
6215 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
6216 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
6217 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
6218 need a software solution for your school.</p>
6219
6220       </div>
6221       <div class="tags">
6222
6223
6224         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6225
6226
6227       </div>
6228     </div>
6229     <div class="padding"></div>
6230
6231     <div class="entry">
6232       <div class="title">
6233         <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>
6234       </div>
6235       <div class="date">
6236         19th February 2012
6237       </div>
6238       <div class="body">
6239         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
6240 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
6241 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
6242 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
6243 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
6244 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
6245 solution for your school.</p>
6246
6247       </div>
6248       <div class="tags">
6249
6250
6251         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6252
6253
6254       </div>
6255     </div>
6256     <div class="padding"></div>
6257
6258     <div class="entry">
6259       <div class="title">
6260         <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>
6261       </div>
6262       <div class="date">
6263         14th February 2012
6264       </div>
6265       <div class="body">
6266         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
6267 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
6268 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
6269 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
6270 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
6271 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
6272 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
6273 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
6274 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
6275
6276 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
6277 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
6278 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
6279 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
6280 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
6281
6282 <blockquote><pre>
6283 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
6284 do
6285     printf "Failed disk $d: "
6286     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
6287 done
6288 </blockquote></pre>
6289
6290 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
6291 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
6292
6293 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
6294
6295 <blockquote><pre>
6296 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
6297 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
6298 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
6299 </blockquote></pre>
6300
6301 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
6302 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
6303 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
6304 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
6305 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
6306 mounted inside my box.</p>
6307
6308 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
6309 Software RAID in the
6310 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
6311 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
6312 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
6313 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
6314 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
6315 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
6316
6317       </div>
6318       <div class="tags">
6319
6320
6321         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>.
6322
6323
6324       </div>
6325     </div>
6326     <div class="padding"></div>
6327
6328     <div class="entry">
6329       <div class="title">
6330         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
6331       </div>
6332       <div class="date">
6333         13th February 2012
6334       </div>
6335       <div class="body">
6336         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
6337 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
6338 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
6339 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
6340 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
6341 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
6342 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
6343 change the global proxy setting by editing
6344 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
6345 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
6346
6347 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
6348 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
6349 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
6350
6351 <blockquote><pre>
6352 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
6353 {
6354    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
6355        isPlainHostName(host) ||
6356        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
6357       return "DIRECT";
6358    else
6359       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
6360 }
6361 </pre></blockquote>
6362
6363 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
6364
6365 <blockquote><pre>
6366 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
6367 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
6368 </pre></blockquote>
6369
6370 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
6371 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
6372 would be used for
6373 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
6374 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
6375 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
6376 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
6377 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
6378 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
6379 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
6380 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
6381 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
6382 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
6383
6384 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
6385 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
6386 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
6387 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
6388 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
6389 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
6390
6391 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
6392 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
6393 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
6394 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
6395 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
6396 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
6397 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
6398 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
6399 the network setup changes.</p>
6400
6401 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
6402 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
6403 draft</a> and a
6404 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
6405 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
6406
6407       </div>
6408       <div class="tags">
6409
6410
6411         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6412
6413
6414       </div>
6415     </div>
6416     <div class="padding"></div>
6417
6418     <div class="entry">
6419       <div class="title">
6420         <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>
6421       </div>
6422       <div class="date">
6423          5th February 2012
6424       </div>
6425       <div class="body">
6426         <p>Since the Lenny version of
6427 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
6428 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
6429 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
6430 in the morning.  This is done using the
6431 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
6432
6433 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
6434 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
6435 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
6436 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
6437 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
6438 the
6439 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
6440 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
6441 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
6442 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
6443 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
6444
6445 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
6446 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
6447 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
6448 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
6449 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
6450 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
6451 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
6452
6453 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
6454 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
6455 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
6456 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
6457 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
6458
6459       </div>
6460       <div class="tags">
6461
6462
6463         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6464
6465
6466       </div>
6467     </div>
6468     <div class="padding"></div>
6469
6470     <div class="entry">
6471       <div class="title">
6472         <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>
6473       </div>
6474       <div class="date">
6475          4th February 2012
6476       </div>
6477       <div class="body">
6478         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
6479 publish the third beta version of
6480 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
6481 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
6482 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
6483 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
6484 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
6485 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
6486 on the project announcement list.</p>
6487
6488 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
6489 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
6490
6491 <ul>
6492
6493 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
6494   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
6495   the installation.</li>
6496
6497 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
6498   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
6499
6500 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
6501   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
6502   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
6503
6504 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
6505   for the local system administrator is created during installation
6506   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
6507   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
6508   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
6509   up to date on the system.</li>
6510
6511 </ul>
6512
6513 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
6514 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
6515 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
6516 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
6517
6518 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
6519 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
6520 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
6521 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
6522 will see you there?</p>
6523
6524       </div>
6525       <div class="tags">
6526
6527
6528         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6529
6530
6531       </div>
6532     </div>
6533     <div class="padding"></div>
6534
6535     <div class="entry">
6536       <div class="title">
6537         <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>
6538       </div>
6539       <div class="date">
6540         27th January 2012
6541       </div>
6542       <div class="body">
6543         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
6544 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
6545 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
6546 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
6547 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
6548 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
6549 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
6550
6551 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
6552 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
6553 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
6554 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
6555 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
6556 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
6557 not taken care of by this.</p>
6558
6559 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
6560 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
6561 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
6562 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
6563 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
6564 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
6565 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
6566 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
6567 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
6568 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
6569 firmware packages.</p>
6570
6571 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
6572 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
6573 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
6574 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
6575 initrd with extra firmware, the
6576 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
6577 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
6578 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
6579
6580 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
6581 network cards working.  For this,
6582 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
6583 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
6584 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
6585
6586 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
6587 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
6588 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
6589
6590 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
6591 try.</p>
6592
6593       </div>
6594       <div class="tags">
6595
6596
6597         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6598
6599
6600       </div>
6601     </div>
6602     <div class="padding"></div>
6603
6604     <div class="entry">
6605       <div class="title">
6606         <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>
6607       </div>
6608       <div class="date">
6609         25th January 2012
6610       </div>
6611       <div class="body">
6612         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
6613 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
6614 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
6615 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
6616 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
6617
6618 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
6619 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
6620 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
6621 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
6622 this is done, log on to the central server and run
6623 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
6624 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
6625 will look similar to this:</p>
6626
6627 <p><blockquote><pre>
6628 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
6629 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
6630 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.
6631
6632 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
6633
6634 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6635 enter password: *******
6636 %
6637 </pre></blockquote></p>
6638
6639 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
6640 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
6641 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
6642 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
6643 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
6644 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
6645 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
6646 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
6647 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
6648 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
6649 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
6650 automatically.</p>
6651
6652 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
6653 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
6654
6655 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
6656 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
6657 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
6658
6659       </div>
6660       <div class="tags">
6661
6662
6663         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6664
6665
6666       </div>
6667     </div>
6668     <div class="padding"></div>
6669
6670     <div class="entry">
6671       <div class="title">
6672         <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>
6673       </div>
6674       <div class="date">
6675         10th January 2012
6676       </div>
6677       <div class="body">
6678         <p>In the Squeeze version of
6679 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
6680 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
6681 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
6682 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
6683 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
6684 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
6685 first time.</p>
6686
6687 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
6688 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
6689 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
6690 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
6691
6692 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
6693 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
6694 new setting.</p>
6695
6696 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
6697 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
6698 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
6699
6700       </div>
6701       <div class="tags">
6702
6703
6704         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6705
6706
6707       </div>
6708     </div>
6709     <div class="padding"></div>
6710
6711     <div class="entry">
6712       <div class="title">
6713         <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>
6714       </div>
6715       <div class="date">
6716          7th January 2012
6717       </div>
6718       <div class="body">
6719         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
6720 the second beta version of
6721 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
6722 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
6723 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
6724 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
6725 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
6726 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
6727 on the project announcement list.</p>
6728
6729       </div>
6730       <div class="tags">
6731
6732
6733         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6734
6735
6736       </div>
6737     </div>
6738     <div class="padding"></div>
6739
6740     <div class="entry">
6741       <div class="title">
6742         <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>
6743       </div>
6744       <div class="date">
6745          3rd January 2012
6746       </div>
6747       <div class="body">
6748         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
6749 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
6750 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
6751 interesting.</p>
6752
6753 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
6754 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
6755 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
6756 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
6757 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
6758 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
6759 wrap up its tasks.</p>
6760
6761 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
6762 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
6763 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
6764 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
6765 because I was typing.</P>
6766
6767 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
6768 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
6769 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
6770 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
6771 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
6772 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
6773 generate entropy.</p>
6774
6775 <p>The fix is in
6776 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
6777 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
6778 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
6779 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
6780
6781       </div>
6782       <div class="tags">
6783
6784
6785         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6786
6787
6788       </div>
6789     </div>
6790     <div class="padding"></div>
6791
6792     <div class="entry">
6793       <div class="title">
6794         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
6795       </div>
6796       <div class="date">
6797         21st November 2011
6798       </div>
6799       <div class="body">
6800         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
6801 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
6802 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
6803 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
6804 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
6805 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
6806 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
6807 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
6808 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
6809 the tools to do so.</p>
6810
6811 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
6812 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
6813 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
6814 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
6815
6816 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
6817 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
6818 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
6819 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
6820 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
6821 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
6822 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
6823 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
6824
6825 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
6826 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
6827 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
6828
6829 <p><pre>
6830 #!/usr/bin/perl
6831 use strict;
6832 use warnings;
6833 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
6834 BEGIN {
6835     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
6836     my %rhelmodules = (
6837         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
6838         );
6839     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
6840         eval "use $module;";
6841         if ($@) {
6842             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
6843             system("yum install -y $pkg");
6844             eval "use $module;";
6845         }
6846     }
6847 }
6848 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
6849
6850 upgrade_dell();
6851
6852 exit 0;
6853
6854 sub run_firmware_script {
6855     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
6856     unless ($script) {
6857         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
6858         exit 1
6859     }
6860     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
6861
6862     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
6863         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
6864     } else {
6865         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
6866     }
6867 }
6868
6869 sub run_firmware_scripts {
6870     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
6871     # Run firmware packages
6872     for my $dir (@dirs) {
6873         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
6874         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
6875         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
6876             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
6877             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
6878         }
6879         closedir $dh;
6880     }
6881 }
6882
6883 sub download {
6884     my $url = shift;
6885     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
6886     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
6887 }
6888
6889 sub upgrade_dell {
6890     my @dirs;
6891     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
6892     chomp $product;
6893
6894     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
6895
6896         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
6897         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
6898
6899         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
6900             CLEANUP => 1
6901             );
6902         chdir($tmpdir);
6903         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
6904         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
6905         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
6906         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
6907         my $fwopts = "-q";
6908         if (@paths) {
6909             for my $url (@paths) {
6910                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
6911             }
6912             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
6913         } else {
6914             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
6915             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
6916         }
6917         chdir('/');
6918     } else {
6919         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
6920         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
6921     }
6922 }
6923
6924 sub fetch_dell_fw {
6925     my $path = shift;
6926     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
6927     download($url);
6928 }
6929
6930 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
6931 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
6932 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
6933 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
6934     my $filename = shift;
6935
6936     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
6937     chomp $product;
6938     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
6939
6940     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
6941
6942     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
6943     my @paths;
6944     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
6945         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
6946         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
6947         my $oscode;
6948         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
6949             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
6950         } else {
6951             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
6952         }
6953         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
6954         {
6955             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
6956         }
6957     }
6958     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
6959         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
6960
6961         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
6962         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
6963
6964         my $cpath = $component->{path};
6965         for my $path (@paths) {
6966             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
6967                 push(@paths, $cpath);
6968             }
6969         }
6970     }
6971     return @paths;
6972 }
6973 </pre>
6974
6975 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
6976 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
6977 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
6978 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
6979 outdated.</p>
6980
6981       </div>
6982       <div class="tags">
6983
6984
6985         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>.
6986
6987
6988       </div>
6989     </div>
6990     <div class="padding"></div>
6991
6992     <div class="entry">
6993       <div class="title">
6994         <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>
6995       </div>
6996       <div class="date">
6997          7th October 2011
6998       </div>
6999       <div class="body">
7000         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
7001 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
7002 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
7003 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
7004 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
7005 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
7006 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
7007 models.</p>
7008
7009 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
7010 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
7011 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
7012 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
7013
7014 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
7015 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
7016 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
7017 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
7018 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
7019 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
7020 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
7021 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
7022 distributed.</p>
7023
7024 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
7025
7026 <ul>
7027
7028 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
7029   other relevant equipment.</li>
7030
7031 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
7032
7033 </ul>
7034
7035 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
7036 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
7037 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
7038 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
7039 books available.</p>
7040
7041 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
7042 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
7043 libraries. :)</p>
7044
7045       </div>
7046       <div class="tags">
7047
7048
7049         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>.
7050
7051
7052       </div>
7053     </div>
7054     <div class="padding"></div>
7055
7056     <div class="entry">
7057       <div class="title">
7058         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
7059       </div>
7060       <div class="date">
7061         17th September 2011
7062       </div>
7063       <div class="body">
7064         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
7065 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
7066 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
7067 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
7068 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
7069 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
7070 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
7071 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
7072
7073 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
7074
7075 <blockquote><pre>
7076 #!/bin/sh
7077 # apt-get install lsdvd
7078 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
7079 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
7080 </pre></blockquote>
7081
7082 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
7083 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
7084 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
7085 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
7086
7087 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
7088 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
7089 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
7090 back as an ISO.
7091
7092 <blockquote><pre>
7093 #!/bin/sh
7094 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
7095 set -e
7096 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
7097 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
7098 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
7099 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
7100 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
7101 </pre></blockquote>
7102
7103 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
7104
7105 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
7106 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
7107 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
7108 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
7109 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
7110
7111 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
7112 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
7113 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
7114 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
7115 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
7116 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
7117
7118       </div>
7119       <div class="tags">
7120
7121
7122         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>.
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/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</a>
7132       </div>
7133       <div class="date">
7134          4th August 2011
7135       </div>
7136       <div class="body">
7137         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
7138 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
7139 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
7140 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
7141 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
7142 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
7143 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
7144 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
7145 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
7146
7147 <p><blockquote>
7148 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
7149 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
7150 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
7151 </blockquote></p>
7152
7153 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
7154 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
7155 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
7156 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
7157 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
7158 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
7159 hard to explain.</p>
7160
7161 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
7162 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
7163 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
7164 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
7165 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
7166 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
7167 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
7168 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
7169 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
7170 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
7171 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
7172 mode).</p>
7173
7174 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
7175 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
7176 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
7177 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
7178 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
7179 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
7180 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
7181 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
7182 after visiting single user mode.</p>
7183
7184 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
7185 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
7186 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
7187 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
7188 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
7189 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
7190 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
7191 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
7192
7193 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
7194 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
7195 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
7196
7197       </div>
7198       <div class="tags">
7199
7200
7201         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>.
7202
7203
7204       </div>
7205     </div>
7206     <div class="padding"></div>
7207
7208     <div class="entry">
7209       <div class="title">
7210         <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>
7211       </div>
7212       <div class="date">
7213         30th July 2011
7214       </div>
7215       <div class="body">
7216         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
7217 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
7218 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
7219 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
7220 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
7221 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
7222 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
7223 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
7224 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
7225 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
7226 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
7227 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
7228 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
7229
7230 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
7231 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
7232 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
7233 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
7234 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
7235 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
7236 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
7237 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
7238 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
7239
7240 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
7241 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
7242 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
7243 is presented.</p>
7244
7245 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
7246 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
7247 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
7248 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
7249 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
7250 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
7251 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
7252 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
7253 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
7254 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
7255 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
7256 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
7257 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
7258 find time to push this forward.</p>
7259
7260       </div>
7261       <div class="tags">
7262
7263
7264         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>.
7265
7266
7267       </div>
7268     </div>
7269     <div class="padding"></div>
7270
7271     <div class="entry">
7272       <div class="title">
7273         <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>
7274       </div>
7275       <div class="date">
7276         29th July 2011
7277       </div>
7278       <div class="body">
7279         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
7280 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
7281 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
7282 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
7283 issues.</p>
7284
7285 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
7286 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
7287 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
7288
7289 <ol>
7290
7291 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
7292 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
7293 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
7294 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
7295 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
7296 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
7297 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
7298 Debian.</li>
7299
7300 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
7301 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
7302 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
7303 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
7304 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
7305 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
7306 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
7307 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
7308 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
7309 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
7310 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
7311 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
7312 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
7313
7314 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
7315 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
7316 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
7317 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
7318 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
7319 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
7320 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
7321 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
7322 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
7323 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
7324
7325 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
7326 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
7327 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
7328 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
7329 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
7330 latter behaviour.</li>
7331
7332 </ol>
7333
7334 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
7335 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
7336 it do not matter much.</p>
7337
7338 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
7339 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
7340 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
7341
7342       </div>
7343       <div class="tags">
7344
7345
7346         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>.
7347
7348
7349       </div>
7350     </div>
7351     <div class="padding"></div>
7352
7353     <div class="entry">
7354       <div class="title">
7355         <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>
7356       </div>
7357       <div class="date">
7358         26th July 2011
7359       </div>
7360       <div class="body">
7361         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
7362 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
7363 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
7364 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
7365 security support for a few years.</p>
7366
7367 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
7368 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
7369 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
7370 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
7371 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
7372 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
7373 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
7374 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
7375 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
7376 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
7377 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
7378 easier in the future.</p>
7379
7380 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
7381 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
7382 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
7383 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
7384 do not have time for.</p>
7385
7386       </div>
7387       <div class="tags">
7388
7389
7390         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>.
7391
7392
7393       </div>
7394     </div>
7395     <div class="padding"></div>
7396
7397     <div class="entry">
7398       <div class="title">
7399         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
7400       </div>
7401       <div class="date">
7402         20th June 2011
7403       </div>
7404       <div class="body">
7405         <p>Reading
7406 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
7407 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
7408 parts of the
7409 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
7410 and
7411 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
7412 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
7413 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
7414 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
7415
7416       </div>
7417       <div class="tags">
7418
7419
7420         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>.
7421
7422
7423       </div>
7424     </div>
7425     <div class="padding"></div>
7426
7427     <div class="entry">
7428       <div class="title">
7429         <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>
7430       </div>
7431       <div class="date">
7432         30th April 2011
7433       </div>
7434       <div class="body">
7435         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
7436 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
7437 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
7438 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
7439 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
7440 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
7441 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
7442 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
7443 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
7444 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
7445
7446 <p>Where is it?  Visit
7447 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
7448 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
7449 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
7450 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
7451
7452       </div>
7453       <div class="tags">
7454
7455
7456         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>.
7457
7458
7459       </div>
7460     </div>
7461     <div class="padding"></div>
7462
7463     <div class="entry">
7464       <div class="title">
7465         <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>
7466       </div>
7467       <div class="date">
7468         29th April 2011
7469       </div>
7470       <div class="body">
7471         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
7472 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
7473 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
7474 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
7475 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
7476 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
7477 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
7478 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
7479 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
7480 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
7481 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
7482 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
7483 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
7484
7485 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
7486 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
7487 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
7488 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
7489 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
7490 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
7491 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
7492 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
7493 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
7494 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
7495 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
7496 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
7497 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
7498
7499 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
7500 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
7501 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
7502 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
7503 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
7504 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
7505 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
7506 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
7507 it.</p>
7508
7509 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
7510 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
7511 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
7512 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
7513 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
7514 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
7515 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
7516
7517 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
7518 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
7519 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
7520 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
7521 and range= options.</p>
7522
7523 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
7524 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
7525 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
7526 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
7527 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
7528 to best handle this.  I've noticed
7529 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
7530 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
7531 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
7532 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
7533
7534 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
7535 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
7536 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
7537 discussions instead of only
7538 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
7539 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
7540 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
7541 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
7542 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
7543 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
7544
7545       </div>
7546       <div class="tags">
7547
7548
7549         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>.
7550
7551
7552       </div>
7553     </div>
7554     <div class="padding"></div>
7555
7556     <div class="entry">
7557       <div class="title">
7558         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
7559       </div>
7560       <div class="date">
7561          6th April 2011
7562       </div>
7563       <div class="body">
7564         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
7565 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
7566 A few days ago the project
7567 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
7568 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
7569 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
7570 into Gnash.</p>
7571
7572       </div>
7573       <div class="tags">
7574
7575
7576         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>.
7577
7578
7579       </div>
7580     </div>
7581     <div class="padding"></div>
7582
7583     <div class="entry">
7584       <div class="title">
7585         <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>
7586       </div>
7587       <div class="date">
7588          3rd April 2011
7589       </div>
7590       <div class="body">
7591         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
7592 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
7593 update in English.</p>
7594
7595 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
7596 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
7597 of the British service
7598 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
7599 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
7600 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
7601 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
7602 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
7603 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
7604 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
7605 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
7606 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
7607 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
7608 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
7609 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
7610 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
7611
7612 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
7613 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
7614 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
7615 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
7616 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
7617 public infrastructure.</p>
7618
7619 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
7620 such service?</p>
7621
7622       </div>
7623       <div class="tags">
7624
7625
7626         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>.
7627
7628
7629       </div>
7630     </div>
7631     <div class="padding"></div>
7632
7633     <div class="entry">
7634       <div class="title">
7635         <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>
7636       </div>
7637       <div class="date">
7638         28th January 2011
7639       </div>
7640       <div class="body">
7641         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
7642 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
7643 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
7644 available on the Internet, and check our locally
7645 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
7646 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
7647 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
7648 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
7649 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
7650 out which security holes were present in our free software
7651 collection.</p>
7652
7653 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
7654 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
7655 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
7656 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
7657 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
7658 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
7659 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
7660 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
7661 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
7662 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
7663 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
7664 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
7665 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
7666 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
7667 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
7668 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
7669
7670 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
7671 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
7672 check out, one could look up
7673 <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
7674 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
7675 The most recent one is
7676 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
7677 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
7678 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
7679
7680 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
7681 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
7682 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
7683 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
7684 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
7685 security issues out.</p>
7686
7687 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
7688 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
7689 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
7690 RHEL is providing
7691 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
7692 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
7693 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
7694
7695 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
7696 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
7697 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
7698 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
7699 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
7700 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
7701 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
7702 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
7703 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
7704 established soon.</p>
7705
7706 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
7707 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
7708 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
7709 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
7710 for their packages.</p>
7711
7712       </div>
7713       <div class="tags">
7714
7715
7716         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>.
7717
7718
7719       </div>
7720     </div>
7721     <div class="padding"></div>
7722
7723     <div class="entry">
7724       <div class="title">
7725         <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>
7726       </div>
7727       <div class="date">
7728         23rd January 2011
7729       </div>
7730       <div class="body">
7731         <p>In the
7732 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
7733 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
7734 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
7735 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
7736 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
7737 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
7738 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
7739 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
7740 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
7741 one of my machines like this:</p>
7742
7743 <pre>
7744 loaded modules:
7745 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
7746 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
7747 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
7748 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
7749 10de:03ec pata_amd
7750 10de:03f6 sata_nv
7751 1022:1103 k8temp
7752 109e:036e bttv
7753 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
7754 11ab:4364 sky2
7755 </pre>
7756
7757 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
7758 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
7759
7760 <pre>
7761 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
7762     echo loaded pci modules:
7763     (
7764         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
7765         for address in * ; do
7766             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
7767                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
7768                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
7769                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
7770                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
7771                     echo "$id $module"
7772                 fi
7773             fi
7774         done
7775     )
7776     echo
7777 fi
7778 </pre>
7779
7780 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
7781 mappings:</p>
7782
7783 <pre>
7784 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
7785     echo loaded usb modules:
7786     (
7787         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
7788         for address in * ; do
7789             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
7790                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
7791                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
7792                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
7793                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
7794                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
7795                         echo "$id $module"
7796                     fi
7797                 fi
7798             fi
7799         done
7800     )
7801     echo
7802 fi
7803 </pre>
7804
7805 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
7806 well.</p>
7807
7808       </div>
7809       <div class="tags">
7810
7811
7812         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>.
7813
7814
7815       </div>
7816     </div>
7817     <div class="padding"></div>
7818
7819     <div class="entry">
7820       <div class="title">
7821         <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>
7822       </div>
7823       <div class="date">
7824         16th January 2011
7825       </div>
7826       <div class="body">
7827         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
7828 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
7829 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
7830 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
7831 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
7832 the Wikipedia article on
7833 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
7834 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
7835 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
7836 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
7837 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
7838 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
7839 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
7840 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
7841 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
7842 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
7843 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
7844 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
7845
7846 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
7847 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
7848 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
7849 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
7850 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
7851 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
7852 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
7853 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
7854 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
7855 from last week</a>.</p>
7856
7857 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
7858 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
7859 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
7860 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
7861 was without royalties and license terms, check out
7862 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
7863 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
7864
7865 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
7866 available from
7867 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
7868 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
7869 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
7870
7871 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
7872 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
7873 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
7874 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
7875
7876       </div>
7877       <div class="tags">
7878
7879
7880         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>.
7881
7882
7883       </div>
7884     </div>
7885     <div class="padding"></div>
7886
7887     <div class="entry">
7888       <div class="title">
7889         <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>
7890       </div>
7891       <div class="date">
7892         12th January 2011
7893       </div>
7894       <div class="body">
7895         <p>Today I discovered
7896 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
7897 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
7898 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
7899 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
7900 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
7901 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
7902 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
7903 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
7904 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
7905 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
7906 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
7907 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
7908 on the Google announcement is available from
7909 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
7910 A good read. :)</p>
7911
7912 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
7913 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
7914 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
7915 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
7916 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
7917 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
7918 browsers support H.264, and others support
7919 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
7920 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
7921 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
7922 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
7923 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
7924 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
7925 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
7926 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
7927
7928 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
7929 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
7930 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
7931 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
7932 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
7933 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
7934 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
7935
7936 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
7937 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
7938 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
7939 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
7940 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
7941 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
7942 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
7943
7944 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
7945 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
7946 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
7947 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
7948 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
7949 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
7950 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
7951
7952 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
7953 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
7954 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
7955 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
7956 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
7957 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
7958 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
7959 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
7960 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
7961 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
7962 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
7963 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
7964 I guess time will tell.</p>
7965
7966 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
7967 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
7968 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
7969
7970       </div>
7971       <div class="tags">
7972
7973
7974         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>.
7975
7976
7977       </div>
7978     </div>
7979     <div class="padding"></div>
7980
7981     <div class="entry">
7982       <div class="title">
7983         <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>
7984       </div>
7985       <div class="date">
7986         30th December 2010
7987       </div>
7988       <div class="body">
7989         <p>After trying to
7990 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
7991 Ogg Theora</a> to
7992 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
7993 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
7994 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
7995 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
7996 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
7997 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
7998 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
7999
8000 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
8001 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
8002 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
8003 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
8004 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
8005 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
8006 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
8007
8008 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
8009 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
8010
8011       </div>
8012       <div class="tags">
8013
8014
8015         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>.
8016
8017
8018       </div>
8019     </div>
8020     <div class="padding"></div>
8021
8022     <div class="entry">
8023       <div class="title">
8024         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
8025       </div>
8026       <div class="date">
8027         27th December 2010
8028       </div>
8029       <div class="body">
8030         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
8031 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
8032 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
8033 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
8034 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
8035 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
8036 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
8037 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
8038
8039 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
8040 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
8041 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
8042 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
8043 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
8044 page</a>.</p>
8045
8046 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
8047 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
8048 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
8049 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
8050 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
8051 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
8052 specification on equal terms.</p>
8053
8054 <blockquote>
8055
8056 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
8057 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
8058 open standard:</p>
8059
8060 <ul>
8061
8062 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
8063 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
8064 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
8065 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
8066
8067 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
8068 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
8069 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
8070 nominal fee.</li>
8071
8072 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
8073 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
8074 free basis.</li>
8075
8076 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
8077
8078 </ul>
8079 </blockquote>
8080
8081 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
8082 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
8083 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
8084 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
8085 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
8086 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
8087 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
8088
8089 <blockquote>
8090
8091 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
8092
8093 <ol>
8094
8095 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
8096 tilgængelig.</li>
8097
8098 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
8099 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
8100
8101 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
8102 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
8103
8104 </ol>
8105
8106 </blockquote>
8107
8108 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
8109 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
8110
8111 <blockquote>
8112
8113 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
8114
8115 <ol>
8116
8117 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
8118 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
8119
8120 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
8121 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
8122 Standard themselves;</li>
8123
8124 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
8125 any party or in any business model;</li>
8126
8127 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
8128 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
8129 parties;</li>
8130
8131 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
8132 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
8133 parties.</li>
8134
8135 </ol>
8136
8137 </blockquote>
8138
8139 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
8140 its
8141 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
8142 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
8143
8144 <blockquote>
8145 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
8146
8147 <ul>
8148
8149 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
8150   democratic:
8151
8152          <ul>
8153
8154          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
8155             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
8156             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
8157             and managed.</li>
8158
8159          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
8160             method, can be changed through input from all
8161             participants.</li>
8162
8163          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
8164             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
8165
8166          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
8167             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
8168
8169          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
8170             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
8171             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
8172
8173          </ul>
8174
8175 </li>
8176
8177 </ul>
8178
8179 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
8180 <ul>
8181
8182 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
8183   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
8184   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
8185   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
8186   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
8187
8188 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
8189   a technical or economic barriers</li>
8190
8191 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
8192   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
8193   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
8194   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
8195   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
8196   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
8197   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
8198   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
8199   intended to function.</li>
8200
8201 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
8202   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
8203   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
8204
8205 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
8206   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
8207   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
8208   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
8209   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
8210   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
8211   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
8212   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
8213
8214       <ul>
8215
8216       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
8217         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
8218         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
8219
8220       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
8221         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
8222         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
8223         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
8224
8225       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
8226         licensor</li>
8227
8228       </ul>
8229 </li>
8230
8231 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
8232   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
8233   or restricted licensing terms</li>
8234
8235 </ul>
8236
8237 </blockquote>
8238
8239 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
8240 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
8241 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
8242 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
8243 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
8244 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
8245 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
8246 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
8247 Standards.</p>
8248
8249       </div>
8250       <div class="tags">
8251
8252
8253         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>.
8254
8255
8256       </div>
8257     </div>
8258     <div class="padding"></div>
8259
8260     <div class="entry">
8261       <div class="title">
8262         <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>
8263       </div>
8264       <div class="date">
8265         25th December 2010
8266       </div>
8267       <div class="body">
8268         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
8269 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
8270
8271 <blockquote>
8272
8273 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
8274 as follows:</p>
8275
8276 <ol>
8277
8278 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
8279 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
8280 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
8281
8282 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
8283 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
8284 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
8285 parties.</li>
8286
8287 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
8288 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
8289 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
8290
8291 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
8292 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
8293
8294 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
8295
8296 </ol>
8297
8298 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
8299 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
8300 products based on the standard.</p>
8301 </blockquote>
8302
8303 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
8304 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
8305 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
8306 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
8307 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
8308 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
8309 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
8310 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
8311
8312 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
8313
8314 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
8315 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
8316 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
8317 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
8318 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
8319 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
8320 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
8321 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
8322 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
8323 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
8324 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
8325 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
8326 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
8327 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
8328
8329 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
8330
8331 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
8332 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
8333 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
8334 documentation indicating this.</p>
8335
8336 <p>According to
8337 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
8338 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
8339 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
8340 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
8341 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
8342 report is correct.</p>
8343
8344 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
8345
8346 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
8347 container format</a> and both the
8348 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
8349 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
8350 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
8351
8352 <blockquote>
8353
8354 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
8355 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
8356 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
8357 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
8358 specification compliance.
8359
8360 </blockquote>
8361
8362 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
8363 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
8364 this is the term:<p>
8365
8366 <blockquote>
8367
8368 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
8369 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
8370 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
8371 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
8372 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
8373 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
8374 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
8375 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
8376 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
8377 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
8378 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
8379 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
8380
8381 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
8382 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
8383 </blockquote>
8384
8385 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
8386 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
8387 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
8388 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
8389 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
8390
8391 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
8392
8393 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
8394 Theora format.
8395 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
8396 and
8397 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
8398 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
8399 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
8400 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
8401 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
8402 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
8403 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
8404 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
8405
8406 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
8407
8408 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
8409
8410 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
8411
8412 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
8413 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
8414 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
8415 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
8416 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
8417 this.</p>
8418
8419 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
8420 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
8421
8422       </div>
8423       <div class="tags">
8424
8425
8426         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>.
8427
8428
8429       </div>
8430     </div>
8431     <div class="padding"></div>
8432
8433     <div class="entry">
8434       <div class="title">
8435         <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>
8436       </div>
8437       <div class="date">
8438         25th December 2010
8439       </div>
8440       <div class="body">
8441         <p>A few days ago
8442 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
8443 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
8444 2.0 of
8445 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
8446 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
8447 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
8448 Nothing very surprising there, given
8449 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
8450 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
8451 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
8452 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
8453 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
8454 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
8455 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
8456 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
8457 standard definition from its content.</p>
8458
8459 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
8460 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
8461 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
8462 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
8463 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
8464 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
8465 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
8466 background information about that story is available in
8467 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
8468 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
8469
8470 <blockquote>
8471 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
8472 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
8473 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
8474
8475 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
8476
8477 <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>
8478
8479 <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>
8480
8481 <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>
8482
8483 <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>
8484
8485 <p>
8486 <ul>
8487 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
8488 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
8489 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
8490 </ul>
8491 </p>
8492
8493 <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>
8494
8495 <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>
8496
8497 <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>
8498
8499 <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>
8500
8501 <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>
8502
8503
8504 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
8505 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
8506 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
8507 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
8508 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
8509 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
8510
8511 </p>
8512
8513 <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>
8514
8515 <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>
8516
8517 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
8518
8519 <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>
8520
8521 <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>
8522
8523 <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>
8524
8525 <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>
8526
8527 <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>
8528
8529 <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>
8530
8531 <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>
8532
8533 <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>
8534
8535 <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>
8536
8537 <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>
8538
8539 <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>
8540
8541 <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>
8542
8543 <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>
8544
8545 <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>
8546
8547 <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>
8548
8549 <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>
8550
8551 <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>
8552
8553 <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>
8554
8555 <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>
8556
8557 <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>
8558
8559 <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>
8560
8561 <p>On security:</p>
8562
8563 <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>
8564
8565 <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>
8566
8567 <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>
8568
8569 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
8570
8571 <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>
8572
8573 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
8574
8575 <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>
8576
8577 <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>
8578
8579 <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>
8580
8581 <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>
8582
8583 <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>
8584
8585 <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>
8586
8587 <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>
8588
8589 <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>
8590
8591 <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>
8592
8593 <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>
8594
8595 <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>
8596
8597 <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>
8598
8599 <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>
8600
8601 <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>
8602
8603 <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>
8604
8605 <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>
8606
8607 <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>
8608
8609 <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>
8610
8611 <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>
8612
8613 <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>
8614
8615 <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>
8616
8617 <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>
8618
8619 <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>
8620
8621 <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>
8622
8623 <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>
8624
8625 <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>
8626
8627 <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>
8628
8629 <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>
8630
8631 <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>
8632
8633 <p>Cordially,<br>
8634 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
8635 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
8636 </blockquote>
8637
8638       </div>
8639       <div class="tags">
8640
8641
8642         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>.
8643
8644
8645       </div>
8646     </div>
8647     <div class="padding"></div>
8648
8649     <div class="entry">
8650       <div class="title">
8651         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
8652       </div>
8653       <div class="date">
8654         25th December 2010
8655       </div>
8656       <div class="body">
8657         <p>Half a year ago I
8658 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
8659 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
8660 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
8661 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
8662
8663 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
8664 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
8665 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
8666 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
8667 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
8668 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
8669 got such a great test tool available.</p>
8670
8671       </div>
8672       <div class="tags">
8673
8674
8675         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>.
8676
8677
8678       </div>
8679     </div>
8680     <div class="padding"></div>
8681
8682     <div class="entry">
8683       <div class="title">
8684         <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>
8685       </div>
8686       <div class="date">
8687         22nd December 2010
8688       </div>
8689       <div class="body">
8690         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
8691 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
8692 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
8693 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
8694 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
8695 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
8696 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
8697 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
8698 university.</p>
8699
8700 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
8701 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
8702 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
8703 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
8704 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
8705 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
8706 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
8707 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
8708
8709 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
8710 I perform on a new model.</p>
8711
8712 <ul>
8713
8714 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
8715 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
8716 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
8717
8718 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
8719 installation, X.org is working.</li>
8720
8721 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
8722 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
8723 reported by the program.</li>
8724
8725 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
8726 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
8727 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
8728 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
8729 normally test this by playing
8730 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
8731 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
8732
8733 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
8734 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
8735
8736 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
8737 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
8738
8739 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
8740 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
8741
8742 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
8743 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
8744 few.</li>
8745
8746 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
8747 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
8748 notice this.</li>
8749
8750 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
8751 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
8752 resume.</li>
8753
8754 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
8755 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
8756 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
8757 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
8758 not.</li>
8759
8760 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
8761 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
8762 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
8763 existence.</li>
8764
8765 </ul>
8766
8767 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
8768 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
8769 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
8770 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
8771 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
8772 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
8773 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
8774 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
8775
8776       </div>
8777       <div class="tags">
8778
8779
8780         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>.
8781
8782
8783       </div>
8784     </div>
8785     <div class="padding"></div>
8786
8787     <div class="entry">
8788       <div class="title">
8789         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
8790       </div>
8791       <div class="date">
8792         11th December 2010
8793       </div>
8794       <div class="body">
8795         <p>As I continue to explore
8796 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
8797 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
8798 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
8799
8800 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
8801 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
8802 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
8803 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
8804 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
8805 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
8806 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
8807 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
8808 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
8809 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
8810 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
8811 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
8812 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
8813 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
8814 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
8815 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
8816 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
8817 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
8818 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
8819 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
8820
8821 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
8822 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
8823 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
8824 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
8825 If the Skolelinux foundation
8826 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
8827 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
8828 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
8829 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
8830 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
8831 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
8832 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
8833 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
8834
8835 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
8836 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
8837 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
8838 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
8839 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
8840 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
8841 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
8842 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
8843 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
8844 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
8845 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
8846 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
8847 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
8848 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
8849 currencies.</p>
8850
8851 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
8852 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
8853 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
8854 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
8855 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
8856 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
8857 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
8858 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
8859 BitCoins.  Check out
8860 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
8861 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
8862 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
8863 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
8864 yet.</p>
8865
8866 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
8867 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
8868 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
8869 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
8870 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
8871
8872       </div>
8873       <div class="tags">
8874
8875
8876         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>.
8877
8878
8879       </div>
8880     </div>
8881     <div class="padding"></div>
8882
8883     <div class="entry">
8884       <div class="title">
8885         <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>
8886       </div>
8887       <div class="date">
8888         10th December 2010
8889       </div>
8890       <div class="body">
8891         <p>With this weeks lawless
8892 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
8893 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
8894 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
8895 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
8896 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
8897 A blog post from
8898 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
8899 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
8900 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
8901 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
8902 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
8903 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
8904 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
8905
8906 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
8907 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
8908 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
8909 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
8910 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
8911 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
8912 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
8913 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
8914 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
8915 Debian</a> soon.</p>
8916
8917 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
8918 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
8919 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
8920 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
8921 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
8922 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
8923 you can even get
8924 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
8925 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
8926 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
8927 on the current exchange rates.</p>
8928
8929 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
8930 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
8931 donations to the address
8932 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
8933
8934       </div>
8935       <div class="tags">
8936
8937
8938         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>.
8939
8940
8941       </div>
8942     </div>
8943     <div class="padding"></div>
8944
8945     <div class="entry">
8946       <div class="title">
8947         <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>
8948       </div>
8949       <div class="date">
8950          9th December 2010
8951       </div>
8952       <div class="body">
8953         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
8954 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
8955 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
8956 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
8957 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
8958 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
8959 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
8960 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
8961 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
8962 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
8963 operational.</p>
8964
8965 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
8966 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
8967 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
8968 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
8969 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
8970 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
8971 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
8972
8973       </div>
8974       <div class="tags">
8975
8976
8977         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>.
8978
8979
8980       </div>
8981     </div>
8982     <div class="padding"></div>
8983
8984     <div class="entry">
8985       <div class="title">
8986         <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>
8987       </div>
8988       <div class="date">
8989         29th November 2010
8990       </div>
8991       <div class="body">
8992         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
8993 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
8994 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
8995 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
8996 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
8997 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
8998
8999 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
9000 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
9001 will hold its
9002 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
9003 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
9004 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
9005 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
9006 vote this year.</p>
9007
9008       </div>
9009       <div class="tags">
9010
9011
9012         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9013
9014
9015       </div>
9016     </div>
9017     <div class="padding"></div>
9018
9019     <div class="entry">
9020       <div class="title">
9021         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
9022       </div>
9023       <div class="date">
9024         27th November 2010
9025       </div>
9026       <div class="body">
9027         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
9028 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
9029 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
9030 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
9031 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
9032 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
9033 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
9034 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
9035
9036 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
9037 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
9038 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
9039 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
9040 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
9041 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
9042 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
9043 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
9044 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
9045 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
9046 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
9047
9048 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
9049 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
9050 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
9051 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
9052 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
9053 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
9054 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
9055 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
9056 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
9057 what is going on.</p>
9058
9059       </div>
9060       <div class="tags">
9061
9062
9063         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>.
9064
9065
9066       </div>
9067     </div>
9068     <div class="padding"></div>
9069
9070     <div class="entry">
9071       <div class="title">
9072         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
9073       </div>
9074       <div class="date">
9075         22nd November 2010
9076       </div>
9077       <div class="body">
9078         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
9079 upgrade testing of the
9080 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
9081 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
9082 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
9083 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
9084
9085 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
9086
9087 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9088
9089 <blockquote><p>
9090   apache2.2-bin
9091   aptdaemon
9092   baobab
9093   binfmt-support
9094   browser-plugin-gnash
9095   cheese-common
9096   cli-common
9097   cups-pk-helper
9098   dmz-cursor-theme
9099   empathy
9100   empathy-common
9101   freedesktop-sound-theme
9102   freeglut3
9103   gconf-defaults-service
9104   gdm-themes
9105   gedit-plugins
9106   geoclue
9107   geoclue-hostip
9108   geoclue-localnet
9109   geoclue-manual
9110   geoclue-yahoo
9111   gnash
9112   gnash-common
9113   gnome
9114   gnome-backgrounds
9115   gnome-cards-data
9116   gnome-codec-install
9117   gnome-core
9118   gnome-desktop-environment
9119   gnome-disk-utility
9120   gnome-screenshot
9121   gnome-search-tool
9122   gnome-session-canberra
9123   gnome-system-log
9124   gnome-themes-extras
9125   gnome-themes-more
9126   gnome-user-share
9127   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
9128   gstreamer0.10-tools
9129   gtk2-engines
9130   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
9131   gtk2-engines-smooth
9132   hamster-applet
9133   libapache2-mod-dnssd
9134   libapr1
9135   libaprutil1
9136   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
9137   libaprutil1-ldap
9138   libart2.0-cil
9139   libboost-date-time1.42.0
9140   libboost-python1.42.0
9141   libboost-thread1.42.0
9142   libchamplain-0.4-0
9143   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
9144   libcheese-gtk18
9145   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
9146   libcryptui0
9147   libdiscid0
9148   libelf1
9149   libepc-1.0-2
9150   libepc-common
9151   libepc-ui-1.0-2
9152   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
9153   libfreerdp0
9154   libgconf2.0-cil
9155   libgdata-common
9156   libgdata7
9157   libgdu-gtk0
9158   libgee2
9159   libgeoclue0
9160   libgexiv2-0
9161   libgif4
9162   libglade2.0-cil
9163   libglib2.0-cil
9164   libgmime2.4-cil
9165   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
9166   libgnome2.24-cil
9167   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
9168   libgpod-common
9169   libgpod4
9170   libgtk2.0-cil
9171   libgtkglext1
9172   libgtksourceview2.0-common
9173   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
9174   libmono-addins0.2-cil
9175   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
9176   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
9177   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
9178   libmono-posix2.0-cil
9179   libmono-security2.0-cil
9180   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
9181   libmono-system2.0-cil
9182   libmtp8
9183   libmusicbrainz3-6
9184   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
9185   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
9186   libopal3.6.8
9187   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
9188   libpt2.6.7
9189   libpython2.6
9190   librpm1
9191   librpmio1
9192   libsdl1.2debian
9193   libsrtp0
9194   libssh-4
9195   libtelepathy-farsight0
9196   libtelepathy-glib0
9197   libtidy-0.99-0
9198   media-player-info
9199   mesa-utils
9200   mono-2.0-gac
9201   mono-gac
9202   mono-runtime
9203   nautilus-sendto
9204   nautilus-sendto-empathy
9205   p7zip-full
9206   pkg-config
9207   python-aptdaemon
9208   python-aptdaemon-gtk
9209   python-axiom
9210   python-beautifulsoup
9211   python-bugbuddy
9212   python-clientform
9213   python-coherence
9214   python-configobj
9215   python-crypto
9216   python-cupshelpers
9217   python-elementtree
9218   python-epsilon
9219   python-evolution
9220   python-feedparser
9221   python-gdata
9222   python-gdbm
9223   python-gst0.10
9224   python-gtkglext1
9225   python-gtksourceview2
9226   python-httplib2
9227   python-louie
9228   python-mako
9229   python-markupsafe
9230   python-mechanize
9231   python-nevow
9232   python-notify
9233   python-opengl
9234   python-openssl
9235   python-pam
9236   python-pkg-resources
9237   python-pyasn1
9238   python-pysqlite2
9239   python-rdflib
9240   python-serial
9241   python-tagpy
9242   python-twisted-bin
9243   python-twisted-conch
9244   python-twisted-core
9245   python-twisted-web
9246   python-utidylib
9247   python-webkit
9248   python-xdg
9249   python-zope.interface
9250   remmina
9251   remmina-plugin-data
9252   remmina-plugin-rdp
9253   remmina-plugin-vnc
9254   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
9255   rhythmbox-plugins
9256   rpm-common
9257   rpm2cpio
9258   seahorse-plugins
9259   shotwell
9260   software-center
9261   system-config-printer-udev
9262   telepathy-gabble
9263   telepathy-mission-control-5
9264   telepathy-salut
9265   tomboy
9266   totem
9267   totem-coherence
9268   totem-mozilla
9269   totem-plugins
9270   transmission-common
9271   xdg-user-dirs
9272   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
9273   xserver-xephyr
9274 </p></blockquote>
9275
9276 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
9277
9278 <blockquote><p>
9279   cheese
9280   ekiga
9281   eog
9282   epiphany-extensions
9283   evolution-exchange
9284   fast-user-switch-applet
9285   file-roller
9286   gcalctool
9287   gconf-editor
9288   gdm
9289   gedit
9290   gedit-common
9291   gnome-games
9292   gnome-games-data
9293   gnome-nettool
9294   gnome-system-tools
9295   gnome-themes
9296   gnuchess
9297   gucharmap
9298   guile-1.8-libs
9299   libavahi-ui0
9300   libdmx1
9301   libgalago3
9302   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
9303   libgtksourceview2.0-0
9304   liblircclient0
9305   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
9306   libspeexdsp1
9307   libsvga1
9308   rhythmbox
9309   seahorse
9310   sound-juicer
9311   system-config-printer
9312   totem-common
9313   transmission-gtk
9314   vinagre
9315   vino
9316 </p></blockquote>
9317
9318 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9319
9320 <blockquote><p>
9321   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9322 </p></blockquote>
9323
9324 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9325
9326 <blockquote><p>
9327 [nothing]
9328 </p></blockquote>
9329
9330 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
9331
9332 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9333
9334 <blockquote><p>
9335   ksmserver
9336 </p></blockquote>
9337
9338 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
9339
9340 <blockquote><p>
9341   kwin
9342   network-manager-kde
9343 </p></blockquote>
9344
9345 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9346
9347 <blockquote><p>
9348   arts
9349   dolphin
9350   freespacenotifier
9351   google-gadgets-gst
9352   google-gadgets-xul
9353   kappfinder
9354   kcalc
9355   kcharselect
9356   kde-core
9357   kde-plasma-desktop
9358   kde-standard
9359   kde-window-manager
9360   kdeartwork
9361   kdeartwork-emoticons
9362   kdeartwork-style
9363   kdeartwork-theme-icon
9364   kdebase
9365   kdebase-apps
9366   kdebase-workspace
9367   kdebase-workspace-bin
9368   kdebase-workspace-data
9369   kdeeject
9370   kdelibs
9371   kdeplasma-addons
9372   kdeutils
9373   kdewallpapers
9374   kdf
9375   kfloppy
9376   kgpg
9377   khelpcenter4
9378   kinfocenter
9379   konq-plugins-l10n
9380   konqueror-nsplugins
9381   kscreensaver
9382   kscreensaver-xsavers
9383   ktimer
9384   kwrite
9385   libgle3
9386   libkde4-ruby1.8
9387   libkonq5
9388   libkonq5-templates
9389   libnetpbm10
9390   libplasma-ruby
9391   libplasma-ruby1.8
9392   libqt4-ruby1.8
9393   marble-data
9394   marble-plugins
9395   netpbm
9396   nuvola-icon-theme
9397   plasma-dataengines-workspace
9398   plasma-desktop
9399   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
9400   plasma-runners-addons
9401   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
9402   plasma-scriptengine-python
9403   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
9404   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
9405   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
9406   plasma-scriptengines
9407   plasma-wallpapers-addons
9408   plasma-widget-folderview
9409   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
9410   ruby
9411   sweeper
9412   update-notifier-kde
9413   xscreensaver-data-extra
9414   xscreensaver-gl
9415   xscreensaver-gl-extra
9416   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
9417 </p></blockquote>
9418
9419 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9420
9421 <blockquote><p>
9422   ark
9423   google-gadgets-common
9424   google-gadgets-qt
9425   htdig
9426   kate
9427   kdebase-bin
9428   kdebase-data
9429   kdepasswd
9430   kfind
9431   klipper
9432   konq-plugins
9433   konqueror
9434   ksysguard
9435   ksysguardd
9436   libarchive1
9437   libcln6
9438   libeet1
9439   libeina-svn-06
9440   libggadget-1.0-0b
9441   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
9442   libgps19
9443   libkdecorations4
9444   libkephal4
9445   libkonq4
9446   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
9447   libkscreensaver5
9448   libksgrd4
9449   libksignalplotter4
9450   libkunitconversion4
9451   libkwineffects1a
9452   libmarblewidget4
9453   libntrack-qt4-1
9454   libntrack0
9455   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
9456   libplasmaclock4a
9457   libplasmagenericshell4
9458   libprocesscore4a
9459   libprocessui4a
9460   libqalculate5
9461   libqedje0a
9462   libqtruby4shared2
9463   libqzion0a
9464   libruby1.8
9465   libscim8c2a
9466   libsmokekdecore4-3
9467   libsmokekdeui4-3
9468   libsmokekfile3
9469   libsmokekhtml3
9470   libsmokekio3
9471   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
9472   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
9473   libsmokekparts3
9474   libsmokektexteditor3
9475   libsmokekutils3
9476   libsmokenepomuk3
9477   libsmokephonon3
9478   libsmokeplasma3
9479   libsmokeqtcore4-3
9480   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
9481   libsmokeqtgui4-3
9482   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
9483   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
9484   libsmokeqtscript4-3
9485   libsmokeqtsql4-3
9486   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
9487   libsmokeqttest4-3
9488   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
9489   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
9490   libsmokeqtxml4-3
9491   libsmokesolid3
9492   libsmokesoprano3
9493   libtaskmanager4a
9494   libtidy-0.99-0
9495   libweather-ion4a
9496   libxklavier16
9497   libxxf86misc1
9498   okteta
9499   oxygencursors
9500   plasma-dataengines-addons
9501   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
9502   plasma-widget-lancelot
9503   plasma-widgets-addons
9504   plasma-widgets-workspace
9505   polkit-kde-1
9506   ruby1.8
9507   systemsettings
9508   update-notifier-common
9509 </p></blockquote>
9510
9511 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
9512 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
9513 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
9514 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
9515
9516       </div>
9517       <div class="tags">
9518
9519
9520         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>.
9521
9522
9523       </div>
9524     </div>
9525     <div class="padding"></div>
9526
9527     <div class="entry">
9528       <div class="title">
9529         <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>
9530       </div>
9531       <div class="date">
9532         22nd November 2010
9533       </div>
9534       <div class="body">
9535         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
9536 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
9537 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
9538 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
9539 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
9540 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
9541 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
9542 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
9543 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
9544
9545 <p>I found
9546 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
9547 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
9548 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
9549 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
9550 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
9551 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
9552
9553 <pre>
9554 #!/bin/sh
9555
9556 # Based on
9557 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
9558
9559 set -e
9560 set -x
9561
9562 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
9563     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
9564     exit 1
9565 else
9566     host="$1"
9567 fi
9568
9569 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
9570     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
9571     exit 1
9572 fi
9573
9574 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
9575 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
9576 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
9577 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
9578
9579 img=$host.img
9580 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
9581 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
9582
9583 parted $img mklabel msdos
9584 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
9585 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
9586 parted $img set 1 boot on
9587
9588 modprobe dm-mod
9589 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
9590 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
9591
9592 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
9593 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
9594 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
9595
9596 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
9597 losetup -d /dev/loop0
9598 </pre>
9599
9600 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
9601 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
9602
9603 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
9604 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
9605 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
9606 seem to work just fine.</p>
9607
9608       </div>
9609       <div class="tags">
9610
9611
9612         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>.
9613
9614
9615       </div>
9616     </div>
9617     <div class="padding"></div>
9618
9619     <div class="entry">
9620       <div class="title">
9621         <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>
9622       </div>
9623       <div class="date">
9624         20th November 2010
9625       </div>
9626       <div class="body">
9627         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
9628 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
9629 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
9630 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
9631
9632 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
9633 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
9634 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
9635
9636 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
9637
9638 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9639
9640 <blockquote><p>
9641   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
9642   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
9643   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
9644   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
9645   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
9646   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
9647   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
9648   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
9649   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
9650   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
9651   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
9652   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
9653   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
9654   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
9655   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
9656   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
9657   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
9658   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
9659   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
9660   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
9661   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
9662   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
9663   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
9664   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
9665   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
9666   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
9667   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
9668   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
9669   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
9670   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
9671   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
9672   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
9673   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
9674   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
9675   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
9676   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
9677   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
9678   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
9679   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
9680   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
9681   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
9682   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
9683   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
9684   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
9685   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
9686   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
9687   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
9688   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
9689   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
9690   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
9691   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
9692   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
9693   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
9694   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
9695   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
9696   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
9697   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
9698   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
9699   zip
9700 </p></blockquote>
9701
9702 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
9703
9704 <blockquote><p>
9705   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
9706   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
9707   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
9708   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
9709   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
9710   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
9711   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
9712   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
9713   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
9714   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
9715   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
9716   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
9717   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
9718   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
9719   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
9720   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
9721   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
9722   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
9723   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
9724   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
9725   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
9726   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
9727   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
9728   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
9729   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
9730   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
9731   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
9732   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
9733   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
9734 </p></blockquote>
9735
9736 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9737
9738 <blockquote><p>
9739   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9740 </p></blockquote>
9741
9742 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9743
9744 <blockquote><p>
9745 [nothing]
9746 </p></blockquote>
9747
9748 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
9749
9750 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9751
9752 <blockquote><p>
9753   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
9754   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
9755   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
9756   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
9757   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
9758   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
9759   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
9760   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
9761   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
9762   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
9763   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
9764   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
9765   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
9766   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
9767   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
9768   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
9769   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
9770   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
9771   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
9772   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
9773   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
9774   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
9775   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
9776   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
9777   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
9778   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
9779   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
9780   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
9781   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
9782   ttf-sazanami-gothic
9783 </p></blockquote>
9784
9785 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
9786
9787 <blockquote><p>
9788   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
9789   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
9790   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
9791   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
9792   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
9793   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
9794   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
9795   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
9796   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
9797   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
9798   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
9799   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
9800   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
9801   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
9802   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
9803   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
9804   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
9805   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
9806   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
9807   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
9808   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
9809   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
9810   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
9811   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
9812   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
9813   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
9814   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
9815   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
9816   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
9817   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
9818   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
9819   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
9820   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
9821 </p></blockquote>
9822
9823 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9824
9825 <blockquote><p>
9826   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
9827   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
9828   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
9829   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
9830   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
9831   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
9832   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
9833 </p></blockquote>
9834
9835 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9836
9837 <blockquote><p>
9838   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
9839 </p></blockquote>
9840
9841       </div>
9842       <div class="tags">
9843
9844
9845         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>.
9846
9847
9848       </div>
9849     </div>
9850     <div class="padding"></div>
9851
9852     <div class="entry">
9853       <div class="title">
9854         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
9855       </div>
9856       <div class="date">
9857         20th November 2010
9858       </div>
9859       <div class="body">
9860         <p>Answering
9861 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
9862 call from the Gnash project</a> for
9863 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
9864 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
9865 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
9866 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
9867 releases out more often.</p>
9868
9869 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
9870 I have considered setting up a <a
9871 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
9872 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
9873 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
9874 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
9875 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
9876 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
9877 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
9878 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
9879 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
9880 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
9881 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
9882 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
9883
9884       </div>
9885       <div class="tags">
9886
9887
9888         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>.
9889
9890
9891       </div>
9892     </div>
9893     <div class="padding"></div>
9894
9895     <div class="entry">
9896       <div class="title">
9897         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
9898       </div>
9899       <div class="date">
9900          9th November 2010
9901       </div>
9902       <div class="body">
9903         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
9904
9905 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
9906 3D linked in from
9907 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
9908 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
9909
9910       </div>
9911       <div class="tags">
9912
9913
9914         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>.
9915
9916
9917       </div>
9918     </div>
9919     <div class="padding"></div>
9920
9921     <div class="entry">
9922       <div class="title">
9923         <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>
9924       </div>
9925       <div class="date">
9926          7th November 2010
9927       </div>
9928       <div class="body">
9929         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
9930 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
9931 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
9932 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
9933 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
9934 working using this DVD.</p>
9935
9936 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
9937 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
9938 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
9939 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
9940 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
9941 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
9942 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
9943
9944 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
9945 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
9946 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
9947 Debian archive.</p>
9948
9949 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
9950 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
9951 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
9952 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
9953 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
9954 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
9955 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
9956 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
9957 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
9958 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
9959 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
9960 free X driver should work.</p>
9961
9962 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
9963 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
9964 DVD more useful again.</p>
9965
9966       </div>
9967       <div class="tags">
9968
9969
9970         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9971
9972
9973       </div>
9974     </div>
9975     <div class="padding"></div>
9976
9977     <div class="entry">
9978       <div class="title">
9979         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
9980       </div>
9981       <div class="date">
9982         24th October 2010
9983       </div>
9984       <div class="body">
9985         <p>Some updates.</p>
9986
9987 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
9988 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
9989 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
9990 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
9991 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
9992 :)</p>
9993
9994 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
9995 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
9996 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
9997 It is called
9998 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
9999 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
10000 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
10001 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
10002 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
10003 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
10004
10005 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
10006 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
10007 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
10008 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
10009 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
10010 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
10011 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
10012 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
10013 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
10014 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
10015
10016       </div>
10017       <div class="tags">
10018
10019
10020         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>.
10021
10022
10023       </div>
10024     </div>
10025     <div class="padding"></div>
10026
10027     <div class="entry">
10028       <div class="title">
10029         <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>
10030       </div>
10031       <div class="date">
10032         19th October 2010
10033       </div>
10034       <div class="body">
10035         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
10036 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
10037 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
10038 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
10039 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
10040 AVM2 flash files.</p>
10041
10042 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
10043 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
10044 following text:</P>
10045
10046 <p><blockquote>
10047
10048   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
10049   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
10050
10051   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
10052
10053   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
10054
10055   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
10056   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
10057   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
10058   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
10059   days. The project web page is available from
10060   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
10061   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
10062   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
10063
10064   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
10065   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
10066   to get this to happen.</p>
10067
10068   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
10069   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
10070
10071 </blockquote></p>
10072
10073 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
10074 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
10075 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
10076 :)</p>
10077
10078       </div>
10079       <div class="tags">
10080
10081
10082         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>.
10083
10084
10085       </div>
10086     </div>
10087     <div class="padding"></div>
10088
10089     <div class="entry">
10090       <div class="title">
10091         <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>
10092       </div>
10093       <div class="date">
10094          9th October 2010
10095       </div>
10096       <div class="body">
10097         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
10098 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
10099 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
10100 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
10101 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
10102 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
10103 robots.</p>
10104
10105 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
10106 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
10107 a few less important features too.</p>
10108
10109 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
10110 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
10111 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
10112 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
10113
10114 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
10115 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
10116 source or binary package:</p>
10117
10118 <p><ul>
10119 <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>
10120 <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>
10121 <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>
10122 </ul></p>
10123
10124 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
10125 please let me know.</p>
10126
10127       </div>
10128       <div class="tags">
10129
10130
10131         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>.
10132
10133
10134       </div>
10135     </div>
10136     <div class="padding"></div>
10137
10138     <div class="entry">
10139       <div class="title">
10140         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
10141       </div>
10142       <div class="date">
10143          3rd October 2010
10144       </div>
10145       <div class="body">
10146         <p><ul>
10147
10148 <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
10149 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
10150
10151 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
10152 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
10153 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
10154
10155 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
10156 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
10157 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
10158 simple setup.
10159
10160 </ul></p>
10161
10162       </div>
10163       <div class="tags">
10164
10165
10166         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>.
10167
10168
10169       </div>
10170     </div>
10171     <div class="padding"></div>
10172
10173     <div class="entry">
10174       <div class="title">
10175         <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>
10176       </div>
10177       <div class="date">
10178          9th September 2010
10179       </div>
10180       <div class="body">
10181         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
10182 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
10183 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
10184 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
10185 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
10186 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
10187 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
10188 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
10189 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
10190
10191 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
10192 written:</p>
10193
10194 <blockquote>
10195 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
10196 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
10197 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
10198 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
10199 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
10200
10201 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
10202 standard.</p>
10203 </blockquote>
10204
10205 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
10206 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
10207 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
10208 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
10209
10210 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
10211 read
10212 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
10213 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
10214 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
10215 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
10216 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
10217 the issue.  The solution is to support the
10218 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
10219 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
10220 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
10221
10222       </div>
10223       <div class="tags">
10224
10225
10226         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>.
10227
10228
10229       </div>
10230     </div>
10231     <div class="padding"></div>
10232
10233     <div class="entry">
10234       <div class="title">
10235         <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>
10236       </div>
10237       <div class="date">
10238          4th September 2010
10239       </div>
10240       <div class="body">
10241         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
10242 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
10243 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
10244 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
10245 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
10246 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
10247 installed.</p>
10248
10249 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
10250 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
10251 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
10252 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
10253 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
10254 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
10255 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
10256 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
10257 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
10258
10259 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
10260 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
10261 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
10262 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
10263 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
10264 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
10265 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
10266 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
10267 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
10268 pages they want to visit.</p>
10269
10270 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
10271 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
10272 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
10273 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
10274 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
10275 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
10276 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
10277 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
10278 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
10279 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
10280 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
10281
10282       </div>
10283       <div class="tags">
10284
10285
10286         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>.
10287
10288
10289       </div>
10290     </div>
10291     <div class="padding"></div>
10292
10293     <div class="entry">
10294       <div class="title">
10295         <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>
10296       </div>
10297       <div class="date">
10298          1st September 2010
10299       </div>
10300       <div class="body">
10301         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
10302 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
10303 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
10304 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
10305 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
10306 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
10307 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
10308 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
10309 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
10310 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
10311 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
10312 drive around.</p>
10313
10314 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
10315 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
10316
10317 <p><pre>
10318 use Spykee;
10319 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
10320 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
10321 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
10322 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
10323 $spykee->left();
10324 sleep 2;
10325 $spykee->right();
10326 sleep 2;
10327 $spykee->forward();
10328 sleep 2;
10329 $spykee->back();
10330 sleep 2;
10331 $spykee->stop();
10332 </pre></p>
10333
10334 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
10335 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
10336 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
10337 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
10338 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
10339 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
10340 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
10341 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
10342 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
10343 going. :).</p>
10344
10345 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
10346 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
10347 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
10348 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
10349
10350       </div>
10351       <div class="tags">
10352
10353
10354         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>.
10355
10356
10357       </div>
10358     </div>
10359     <div class="padding"></div>
10360
10361     <div class="entry">
10362       <div class="title">
10363         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
10364       </div>
10365       <div class="date">
10366         30th August 2010
10367       </div>
10368       <div class="body">
10369         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
10370 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
10371 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
10372 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
10373 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
10374 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
10375 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
10376
10377 <pre>
10378 % ln foo bar
10379 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
10380 %
10381 </pre>
10382
10383 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
10384 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
10385 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
10386 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
10387 nevertheless. :)</p>
10388
10389 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
10390 git from
10391 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
10392
10393       </div>
10394       <div class="tags">
10395
10396
10397         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10398
10399
10400       </div>
10401     </div>
10402     <div class="padding"></div>
10403
10404     <div class="entry">
10405       <div class="title">
10406         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
10407       </div>
10408       <div class="date">
10409         26th August 2010
10410       </div>
10411       <div class="body">
10412         <p>My file system sematics program
10413 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
10414 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
10415 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
10416 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
10417 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
10418 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
10419 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
10420 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
10421 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
10422 script:</p>
10423
10424 <pre>
10425 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
10426   mode_t retval = 0;
10427   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
10428   if (-1 != fd) {
10429     unlink(name);
10430     struct stat statbuf;
10431     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
10432       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
10433     }
10434     close(fd);
10435   }
10436   return retval;
10437 }
10438
10439 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
10440 int test_umask(void) {
10441   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
10442
10443   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
10444   mode_t newmode;
10445   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
10446     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
10447            newmode);
10448   }
10449   umask(007);
10450   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
10451     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
10452            newmode);
10453   }
10454
10455   umask (orig_umask);
10456   return 0;
10457 }
10458
10459 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
10460   [...]
10461   test_umask();
10462   return 0;
10463 }
10464 </pre>
10465
10466 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
10467
10468 <pre>
10469 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
10470 info: testing symlink creation
10471 info: testing subdirectory creation
10472 info: testing fcntl locking
10473   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
10474   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
10475   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
10476   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
10477   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
10478   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
10479 info: testing umask effect on file creation
10480 </pre>
10481
10482 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
10483 result:</p>
10484
10485 <pre>
10486 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
10487 info: testing symlink creation
10488 info: testing subdirectory creation
10489 info: testing fcntl locking
10490   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
10491   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
10492   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
10493   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
10494   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
10495   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
10496 info: testing umask effect on file creation
10497   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
10498   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
10499 </pre>
10500
10501 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
10502 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
10503 directory.</p>
10504
10505 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
10506 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
10507
10508 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
10509 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
10510 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
10511
10512       </div>
10513       <div class="tags">
10514
10515
10516         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10517
10518
10519       </div>
10520     </div>
10521     <div class="padding"></div>
10522
10523     <div class="entry">
10524       <div class="title">
10525         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
10526       </div>
10527       <div class="date">
10528         15th August 2010
10529       </div>
10530       <div class="body">
10531         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
10532 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
10533 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
10534 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
10535 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
10536 long time.</p>
10537
10538       </div>
10539       <div class="tags">
10540
10541
10542         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>.
10543
10544
10545       </div>
10546     </div>
10547     <div class="padding"></div>
10548
10549     <div class="entry">
10550       <div class="title">
10551         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
10552       </div>
10553       <div class="date">
10554          9th August 2010
10555       </div>
10556       <div class="body">
10557         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
10558 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
10559 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
10560 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
10561 generated configuration.</p>
10562
10563 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
10564 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
10565 without any manual configuration.</p>
10566
10567 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
10568 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
10569 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
10570 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
10571 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
10572 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
10573 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
10574 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
10575 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
10576 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
10577 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
10578 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
10579 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
10580 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
10581 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
10582 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
10583 use.</p>
10584
10585 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
10586 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
10587 working properly out of the box:</p>
10588
10589 <ul>
10590 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
10591 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
10592 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
10593 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
10594 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
10595 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
10596 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
10597 </ul>
10598
10599 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
10600
10601 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
10602 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
10603 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
10604 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
10605 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
10606
10607 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
10608 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
10609 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
10610 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
10611 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
10612 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
10613 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
10614 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
10615
10616 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
10617 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
10618 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
10619 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
10620 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
10621 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
10622 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
10623 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
10624 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
10625 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
10626 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
10627 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
10628 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
10629 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
10630 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
10631 current DNS domain is used.</p>
10632
10633 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
10634 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
10635 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
10636 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
10637 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
10638 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
10639 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
10640 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
10641 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
10642 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
10643 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
10644 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
10645 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
10646
10647 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
10648 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
10649 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
10650 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
10651 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
10652 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
10653 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
10654 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
10655 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
10656 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
10657 do for now. :)</p>
10658
10659 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
10660 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
10661 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
10662 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
10663 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
10664 yet.</p>
10665
10666 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
10667 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10668
10669 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
10670 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
10671 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
10672 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
10673
10674       </div>
10675       <div class="tags">
10676
10677
10678         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10679
10680
10681       </div>
10682     </div>
10683     <div class="padding"></div>
10684
10685     <div class="entry">
10686       <div class="title">
10687         <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>
10688       </div>
10689       <div class="date">
10690          8th August 2010
10691       </div>
10692       <div class="body">
10693         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
10694 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
10695 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
10696 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
10697 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
10698 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
10699 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
10700
10701 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
10702 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
10703 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
10704 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
10705 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
10706 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
10707 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
10708
10709 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
10710 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
10711 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
10712 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
10713 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
10714
10715 <pre>
10716 /*
10717  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
10718  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
10719  * directory.
10720  * License: GPL v2 or later
10721  *
10722  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
10723  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
10724 */
10725
10726 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
10727 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
10728 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
10729
10730 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
10731
10732 #include &lt;errno.h>
10733 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
10734 #include &lt;stdio.h>
10735 #include &lt;string.h>
10736 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
10737 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
10738 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
10739 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
10740 #include &lt;unistd.h>
10741
10742 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
10743 /*
10744  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
10745  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
10746  * below.
10747  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
10748  */
10749 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
10750 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
10751   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
10752 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
10753   char *zErrMsg;
10754   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
10755   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
10756   unlink(name);
10757   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
10758   if( rc ){
10759     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
10760     sqlite3_close(db);
10761     return -1;
10762   }
10763
10764   /* create tables */
10765   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
10766   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
10767     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
10768     sqlite3_close(db);
10769     return -1;
10770   }
10771   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
10772   sqlite3_close(db);
10773   return 0;
10774 }
10775 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
10776
10777 /*
10778  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
10779  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
10780  * done in the sqlite3 library.
10781  * See also
10782  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
10783  * POSIX specification
10784  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
10785  */
10786 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
10787   struct flock fl;
10788   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
10789   unlink(name);
10790   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
10791   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
10792
10793   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
10794   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
10795   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
10796   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
10797   fl.l_len    = 1;
10798   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
10799   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
10800
10801   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
10802   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
10803   fl.l_len    = 510;
10804   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
10805   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
10806
10807   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
10808   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
10809   fl.l_len    = 1;
10810   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
10811   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
10812
10813   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
10814   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
10815   fl.l_len    = 1;
10816   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
10817   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
10818
10819   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
10820   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
10821   fl.l_len    = 510;
10822   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
10823
10824   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
10825   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
10826   fl.l_len    = 2;
10827   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
10828   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
10829
10830   close(fd);
10831   return 0;
10832 }
10833
10834 /*
10835  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
10836  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
10837  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
10838  * slowing down file operations.
10839  */
10840 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
10841 #define LEVELS 5
10842   char *path = strdup("test");
10843   char *dirs[LEVELS];
10844   int level;
10845   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
10846   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
10847     char *newpath = NULL;
10848     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
10849       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
10850              path, strerror(errno));
10851       break;
10852     }
10853     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
10854     free(path);
10855     path = newpath;
10856   }
10857   return 0;
10858 }
10859
10860 /*
10861  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
10862  * KDE.
10863  */
10864 int test_symlinks(void) {
10865   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
10866   unlink("symlink");
10867   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
10868     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
10869   return 0;
10870 }
10871
10872 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
10873   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
10874   test_symlinks();
10875   test_subdirectory_creation();
10876 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
10877   test_sqlite_open();
10878 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
10879   test_gcompris_locking();
10880   return 0;
10881 }
10882 </pre>
10883
10884 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
10885 this:</p>
10886
10887 <pre>
10888 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
10889 info: testing symlink creation
10890 info: testing subdirectory creation
10891 info: sqlite worked
10892 info: testing fcntl locking
10893   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
10894   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
10895   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
10896   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
10897   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
10898   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
10899 </pre>
10900
10901 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
10902 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
10903 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
10904 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
10905 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
10906 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
10907 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
10908 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
10909
10910 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
10911 it. :)</p>
10912
10913 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
10914 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
10915 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
10916
10917       </div>
10918       <div class="tags">
10919
10920
10921         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10922
10923
10924       </div>
10925     </div>
10926     <div class="padding"></div>
10927
10928     <div class="entry">
10929       <div class="title">
10930         <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>
10931       </div>
10932       <div class="date">
10933          7th August 2010
10934       </div>
10935       <div class="body">
10936         <p>A few days ago, I
10937 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
10938 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
10939 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
10940 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
10941 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
10942 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
10943 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
10944 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
10945 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
10946
10947 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
10948 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
10949 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
10950 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
10951 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
10952 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
10953 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
10954 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
10955 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
10956 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
10957 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
10958 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
10959 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
10960 gave it a IP address.</p>
10961
10962 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
10963 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
10964 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
10965 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
10966 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
10967 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
10968 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
10969 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
10970
10971 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
10972 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
10973 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
10974 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
10975 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
10976 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
10977
10978 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
10979 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
10980 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
10981 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
10982 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
10983 with UID and GID values.</p>
10984
10985 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
10986 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10987
10988       </div>
10989       <div class="tags">
10990
10991
10992         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10993
10994
10995       </div>
10996     </div>
10997     <div class="padding"></div>
10998
10999     <div class="entry">
11000       <div class="title">
11001         <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>
11002       </div>
11003       <div class="date">
11004          3rd August 2010
11005       </div>
11006       <div class="body">
11007         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
11008 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
11009 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
11010 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
11011 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
11012 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
11013 servers.</p>
11014
11015 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
11016 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
11017 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
11018 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
11019 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
11020 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
11021 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
11022 .uio.no.</p>
11023
11024 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
11025 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
11026 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
11027 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
11028 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
11029 university servers.</p>
11030
11031 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
11032 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
11033 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
11034 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
11035 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
11036 uses.</p>
11037
11038       </div>
11039       <div class="tags">
11040
11041
11042         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
11043
11044
11045       </div>
11046     </div>
11047     <div class="padding"></div>
11048
11049     <div class="entry">
11050       <div class="title">
11051         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
11052       </div>
11053       <div class="date">
11054         27th July 2010
11055       </div>
11056       <div class="body">
11057         <p>I discovered this while doing
11058 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
11059 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
11060 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
11061 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
11062 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
11063
11064 <p>An example is from todays
11065 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
11066 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
11067 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
11068 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
11069 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
11070 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
11071 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
11072
11073 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
11074
11075 <blockquote><pre>
11076 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
11077  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
11078   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
11079 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
11080  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
11081 </pre></blockquote>
11082
11083 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
11084 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
11085 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
11086 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
11087 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
11088 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
11089 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
11090 of dependency loops.</p>
11091
11092 <p>Thanks to
11093 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
11094 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
11095 dependencies
11096 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
11097 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
11098
11099 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
11100 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
11101 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
11102 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
11103 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
11104 it.</p>
11105
11106       </div>
11107       <div class="tags">
11108
11109
11110         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>.
11111
11112
11113       </div>
11114     </div>
11115     <div class="padding"></div>
11116
11117     <div class="entry">
11118       <div class="title">
11119         <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>
11120       </div>
11121       <div class="date">
11122         27th July 2010
11123       </div>
11124       <div class="body">
11125         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
11126 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
11127 completed.</p>
11128
11129 <blockquote>
11130 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
11131 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
11132 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
11133 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
11134 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
11135 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
11136 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
11137 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
11138
11139 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
11140 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
11141 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
11142
11143 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
11144 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
11145 much.</p>
11146
11147 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
11148
11149 <ul>
11150 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
11151 <ul>
11152   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
11153          combination with some new artwork
11154   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
11155   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
11156   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
11157   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
11158   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
11159   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
11160   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
11161   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
11162   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
11163 </ul></li>
11164 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
11165     Enabled for:
11166 <ul>
11167   <li>PAM
11168   <li>LDAP
11169   <li>IMAP
11170   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
11171 </ul>
11172 </li>
11173 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
11174 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
11175     fetched from LDAP.</li>
11176 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
11177 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
11178 </ul>
11179 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
11180
11181 <ul>
11182 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
11183     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
11184     for testing.</li>
11185 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
11186     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
11187     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
11188 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
11189 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
11190 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
11191 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
11192     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
11193 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
11194     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
11195     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
11196 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
11197     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
11198     and help out with translations.</li>
11199 </ul>
11200
11201 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
11202
11203 <ul>
11204 <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>
11205 <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>
11206 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
11207 </ul>
11208 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
11209
11210 <ul>
11211 <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>
11212 <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>
11213 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
11214 </ul>
11215
11216 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
11217 get closer to the final release.</p>
11218
11219 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
11220
11221 <ul>
11222 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
11223 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
11224 </ul>
11225
11226 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
11227 <ul>
11228 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
11229 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
11230 </ul>
11231 <p>How to report bugs:
11232 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
11233
11234 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
11235 </blockquote>
11236
11237       </div>
11238       <div class="tags">
11239
11240
11241         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
11242
11243
11244       </div>
11245     </div>
11246     <div class="padding"></div>
11247
11248     <div class="entry">
11249       <div class="title">
11250         <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>
11251       </div>
11252       <div class="date">
11253         25th July 2010
11254       </div>
11255       <div class="body">
11256         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
11257 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
11258 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
11259 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
11260 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
11261
11262 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
11263 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
11264 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
11265 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
11266 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
11267 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
11268 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
11269
11270 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
11271 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
11272 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
11273 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
11274 up. :)</p>
11275
11276 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
11277 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
11278 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
11279
11280 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
11281 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
11282 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
11283 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
11284 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
11285 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
11286 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
11287 release another day.</p>
11288
11289 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
11290 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11291
11292       </div>
11293       <div class="tags">
11294
11295
11296         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
11297
11298
11299       </div>
11300     </div>
11301     <div class="padding"></div>
11302
11303     <div class="entry">
11304       <div class="title">
11305         <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>
11306       </div>
11307       <div class="date">
11308         18th July 2010
11309       </div>
11310       <div class="body">
11311         <p>Thanks to
11312 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
11313 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
11314 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
11315 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
11316 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
11317 only available from the development server, until more experience is
11318 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
11319
11320 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
11321 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
11322 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
11323 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
11324 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
11325 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
11326 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
11327
11328       </div>
11329       <div class="tags">
11330
11331
11332         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>.
11333
11334
11335       </div>
11336     </div>
11337     <div class="padding"></div>
11338
11339     <div class="entry">
11340       <div class="title">
11341         <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>
11342       </div>
11343       <div class="date">
11344         17th July 2010
11345       </div>
11346       <div class="body">
11347         <p>This is a
11348 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
11349 on my
11350 <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
11351 work</a> on
11352 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
11353 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
11354
11355 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
11356 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
11357 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
11358 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
11359
11360 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
11361 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
11362 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
11363
11364 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
11365
11366 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
11367 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
11368 the web.
11369
11370 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
11371 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
11372 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
11373 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
11374 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
11375 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
11376
11377 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
11378 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
11379 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
11380 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
11381 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
11382 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
11383 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
11384 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
11385 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
11386 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
11387 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
11388 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
11389 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
11390 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
11391 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
11392 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
11393
11394 <blockquote><pre>
11395 ldapsearch -h ldap \
11396   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
11397   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
11398   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
11399   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
11400   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
11401   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
11402
11403 ldapsearch -h ldap \
11404   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
11405   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
11406   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
11407   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
11408   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
11409 </pre></blockquote>
11410
11411 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
11412 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
11413 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
11414 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11415 also exist.</p>
11416
11417 <blockquote><pre>
11418 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11419 objectclass: top
11420 objectclass: dnsdomain
11421 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
11422 dc: tjener
11423 arecord: 10.0.2.2
11424 associateddomain: tjener.intern
11425
11426 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11427 objectclass: top
11428 objectclass: dnsdomain2
11429 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
11430 dc: 2
11431 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
11432 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
11433 </pre></blockquote>
11434
11435 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
11436 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
11437 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
11438 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
11439 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
11440 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
11441 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
11442 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
11443 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
11444 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
11445 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
11446 instead.</p>
11447
11448 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
11449 like this:</p>
11450
11451 <blockquote><pre>
11452 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
11453   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
11454   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
11455   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
11456   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
11457   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
11458
11459 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
11460   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
11461 </pre></blockquote>
11462
11463 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
11464 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
11465 reverse lookups.</p>
11466
11467 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
11468 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
11469 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
11470 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
11471
11472 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
11473 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
11474 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
11475
11476 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
11477 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
11478 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
11479 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
11480 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
11481
11482 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
11483 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
11484 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
11485 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
11486 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
11487
11488 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
11489 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
11490 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
11491 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
11492 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
11493 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
11494
11495 <blockquote><pre>
11496 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
11497     SUP top
11498     AUXILIARY
11499     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
11500           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
11501           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
11502           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
11503           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
11504     ))
11505 </pre></blockquote>
11506
11507 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
11508 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
11509 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
11510 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
11511 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
11512 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
11513
11514 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
11515
11516 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
11517 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
11518 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
11519 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
11520 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
11521
11522 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
11523 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
11524 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
11525 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
11526
11527 <blockquote><pre>
11528 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
11529 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
11530 </pre></blockquote>
11531
11532 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
11533 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
11534 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
11535 search result is this entry:</p>
11536
11537 <blockquote><pre>
11538 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11539 cn: dhcp
11540 objectClass: top
11541 objectClass: dhcpServer
11542 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11543 </pre></blockquote>
11544
11545 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
11546 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
11547 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
11548 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
11549 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
11550 The search result is this entry:</p>
11551
11552 <blockquote><pre>
11553 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11554 cn: DHCP Config
11555 objectClass: top
11556 objectClass: dhcpService
11557 objectClass: dhcpOptions
11558 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11559 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
11560 dhcpStatements: authoritative
11561 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
11562 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
11563 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
11564 </pre></blockquote>
11565
11566 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
11567 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
11568 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
11569 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
11570 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
11571 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
11572 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
11573 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
11574 related computer objects.</p>
11575
11576 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
11577 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
11578 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
11579 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
11580 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
11581 like:</p>
11582
11583 <blockquote><pre>
11584 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11585 cn: hostname
11586 objectClass: top
11587 objectClass: dhcpHost
11588 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
11589 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
11590 </pre></blockquote>
11591
11592 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
11593 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
11594 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
11595 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
11596 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
11597 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
11598 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
11599 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
11600 structural object class.
11601
11602 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
11603
11604 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
11605 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
11606 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
11607 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
11608 in the configuration.</p>
11609
11610 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
11611 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
11612 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
11613 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
11614 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
11615 structure.</p>
11616
11617 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
11618 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
11619
11620 <blockquote><pre>
11621 ou=services
11622   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
11623     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
11624     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
11625       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
11626         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
11627     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
11628       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
11629         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
11630     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
11631       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
11632 </pre></blockquote>
11633
11634 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
11635 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
11636 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
11637 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
11638
11639 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
11640 like this:</p>
11641
11642 <blockquote><pre>
11643 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11644 dc: hostname
11645 objectClass: top
11646 objectClass: dhcpHost
11647 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
11648 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
11649 associateddomain: hostname.intern
11650 arecord: 10.11.12.13
11651 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
11652 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
11653 </pre></blockquote>
11654
11655 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
11656 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
11657 auxiliary object class.</p>
11658
11659       </div>
11660       <div class="tags">
11661
11662
11663         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>.
11664
11665
11666       </div>
11667     </div>
11668     <div class="padding"></div>
11669
11670     <div class="entry">
11671       <div class="title">
11672         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
11673       </div>
11674       <div class="date">
11675         14th July 2010
11676       </div>
11677       <div class="body">
11678         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
11679 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
11680 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
11681 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
11682 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
11683
11684 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
11685 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
11686
11687 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
11688 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
11689 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
11690 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
11691 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
11692 to a slave DNS server.</p>
11693
11694 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
11695 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
11696 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
11697 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
11698 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
11699 seem to work.</p>
11700
11701 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
11702 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
11703 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
11704 this:</p>
11705
11706 <blockquote><pre>
11707   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11708   cn: hostname
11709   objectClass: dhcphost
11710   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
11711   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
11712   associateddomain: hostname.intern
11713   arecord: 10.11.12.13
11714   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
11715   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
11716   ldapconfigsound: Y
11717 </pre></blockquote>
11718
11719 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
11720 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
11721 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
11722 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
11723
11724 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
11725 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
11726 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
11727 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
11728 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
11729 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
11730 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
11731 might be a good place to put it.</p>
11732
11733 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11734 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11735
11736       </div>
11737       <div class="tags">
11738
11739
11740         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>.
11741
11742
11743       </div>
11744     </div>
11745     <div class="padding"></div>
11746
11747     <div class="entry">
11748       <div class="title">
11749         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
11750       </div>
11751       <div class="date">
11752         11th July 2010
11753       </div>
11754       <div class="body">
11755         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
11756 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
11757 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
11758 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
11759
11760 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
11761 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
11762 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
11763 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
11764 LTSP clients.</p>
11765
11766 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
11767 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
11768 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
11769
11770 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
11771 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
11772 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
11773
11774 <blockquote><pre>
11775 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
11776 #
11777 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
11778 #
11779 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
11780 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
11781 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
11782 #
11783 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
11784 # existence of attribute names.
11785 #
11786 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
11787 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
11788 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
11789 #
11790 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
11791 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
11792 #
11793 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
11794 #     SUP top
11795 #     AUXILIARY
11796 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
11797
11798 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
11799 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
11800     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
11801     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
11802         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
11803         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
11804             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
11805             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
11806             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
11807             # bass value on to clients
11808             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
11809         done
11810     done
11811 fi
11812 </pre></blockquote>
11813
11814 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
11815 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
11816 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
11817 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
11818 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
11819
11820 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11821 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11822
11823 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
11824 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
11825 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
11826 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
11827 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
11828 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
11829
11830       </div>
11831       <div class="tags">
11832
11833
11834         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>.
11835
11836
11837       </div>
11838     </div>
11839     <div class="padding"></div>
11840
11841     <div class="entry">
11842       <div class="title">
11843         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
11844       </div>
11845       <div class="date">
11846          9th July 2010
11847       </div>
11848       <div class="body">
11849         <p>Since
11850 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
11851 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
11852 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
11853 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
11854 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
11855 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
11856 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
11857 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
11858 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
11859 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
11860 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
11861 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
11862 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
11863
11864       </div>
11865       <div class="tags">
11866
11867
11868         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>.
11869
11870
11871       </div>
11872     </div>
11873     <div class="padding"></div>
11874
11875     <div class="entry">
11876       <div class="title">
11877         <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>
11878       </div>
11879       <div class="date">
11880          3rd July 2010
11881       </div>
11882       <div class="body">
11883         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
11884 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
11885 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
11886 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
11887 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
11888 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
11889 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
11890 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
11891
11892 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
11893 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
11894 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
11895 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
11896 publish the difference.</p>
11897
11898 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
11899
11900 <blockquote><p>
11901   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
11902   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
11903   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
11904   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
11905   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
11906   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
11907   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
11908   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
11909 </p></blockquote>
11910
11911 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
11912
11913 <blockquote><p>
11914   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
11915   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
11916   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
11917   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
11918   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
11919   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
11920   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
11921   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
11922   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
11923   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
11924   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
11925   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
11926   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
11927   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
11928   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
11929   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
11930   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
11931   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
11932   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
11933   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
11934 </p></blockquote>
11935
11936 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
11937
11938 <blockquote><p>
11939   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
11940   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
11941   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11942   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11943   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
11944   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
11945   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
11946   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11947   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11948   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11949   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11950   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
11951   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
11952   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
11953   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
11954   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
11955   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
11956   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
11957   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
11958   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
11959   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
11960 </p></blockquote>
11961
11962 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
11963
11964 <blockquote><p>
11965   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
11966   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
11967   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
11968 </p></blockquote>
11969
11970 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
11971 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
11972 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
11973 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
11974 the difference somewhat.
11975
11976       </div>
11977       <div class="tags">
11978
11979
11980         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>.
11981
11982
11983       </div>
11984     </div>
11985     <div class="padding"></div>
11986
11987     <div class="entry">
11988       <div class="title">
11989         <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>
11990       </div>
11991       <div class="date">
11992          1st July 2010
11993       </div>
11994       <div class="body">
11995         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
11996 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
11997 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
11998 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
11999 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
12000 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
12001 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
12002 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
12003 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
12004
12005 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
12006
12007 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
12008 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
12009 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
12010 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
12011 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
12012 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
12013 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
12014 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
12015 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
12016 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
12017 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
12018 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
12019 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
12020 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
12021 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
12022
12023 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
12024
12025 <blockquote><pre>
12026 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
12027 </pre></blockquote>
12028
12029 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
12030 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
12031 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
12032 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
12033 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
12034 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
12035 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
12036 on how to get this working.</p>
12037
12038 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
12039 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
12040 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
12041 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
12042 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
12043 instructions I found in the
12044 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
12045 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
12046
12047 <blockquote><pre>
12048         debug-level             0
12049         reload-count            unlimited
12050         paranoia                no
12051
12052         enable-cache            passwd          yes
12053         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
12054         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
12055         suggested-size          passwd          211
12056         check-files             passwd          yes
12057         persistent              passwd          yes
12058         shared                  passwd          yes
12059         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
12060         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
12061
12062         enable-cache            group           yes
12063         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
12064         negative-time-to-live   group           20
12065         suggested-size          group           211
12066         check-files             group           yes
12067         persistent              group           yes
12068         shared                  group           yes
12069         max-db-size             group           33554432
12070         auto-propagate          group           yes
12071
12072         enable-cache            hosts           no
12073         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
12074         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
12075         suggested-size          hosts           211
12076         check-files             hosts           yes
12077         persistent              hosts           yes
12078         shared                  hosts           yes
12079         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
12080
12081         enable-cache            services        yes
12082         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
12083         negative-time-to-live   services        20
12084         suggested-size          services        211
12085         check-files             services        yes
12086         persistent              services        yes
12087         shared                  services        yes
12088         max-db-size             services        33554432
12089 </pre></blockquote>
12090
12091 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
12092 automatically like the one provided in
12093 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
12094 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
12095 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
12096 look like this:</p>
12097
12098 <blockquote><pre>
12099 passwd:         files ldap
12100 group:          files ldap
12101 shadow:         files ldap
12102 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
12103 networks:       files
12104 protocols:      files
12105 services:       files
12106 ethers:         files
12107 rpc:            files
12108 netgroup:       files ldap
12109 </pre></blockquote>
12110
12111 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
12112 shadow and netgroup.</p>
12113
12114 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
12115 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
12116 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
12117 attributes cached.
12118
12119 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
12120   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
12121
12122 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
12123 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
12124 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
12125 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
12126 discovered sssd.</p>
12127
12128 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
12129
12130 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
12131 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
12132 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
12133 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
12134 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
12135 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
12136 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
12137 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
12138 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
12139 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
12140 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
12141 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
12142 version 1.2 is now in testing.
12143
12144 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
12145 roaming setup I want</p>
12146
12147 <blockquote><pre>
12148 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
12149 </pre></blockquote>
12150
12151 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
12152 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
12153
12154 <blockquote><pre>
12155 [sssd]
12156 config_file_version = 2
12157 reconnection_retries = 3
12158 sbus_timeout = 30
12159 services = nss, pam
12160 domains = INTERN
12161
12162 [nss]
12163 filter_groups = root
12164 filter_users = root
12165 reconnection_retries = 3
12166
12167 [pam]
12168 reconnection_retries = 3
12169
12170 [domain/INTERN]
12171 enumerate = false
12172 cache_credentials = true
12173
12174 id_provider = ldap
12175 auth_provider = ldap
12176 chpass_provider = ldap
12177
12178 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
12179 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12180 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
12181 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
12182 </pre></blockquote>
12183
12184 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
12185 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
12186
12187 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
12188 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
12189 modify it manually.</p>
12190
12191 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
12192 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
12193
12194       </div>
12195       <div class="tags">
12196
12197
12198         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12199
12200
12201       </div>
12202     </div>
12203     <div class="padding"></div>
12204
12205     <div class="entry">
12206       <div class="title">
12207         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
12208       </div>
12209       <div class="date">
12210         28th June 2010
12211       </div>
12212       <div class="body">
12213         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
12214 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
12215 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
12216 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
12217 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
12218 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
12219 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
12220 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
12221 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
12222 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
12223
12224 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
12225 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
12226 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
12227 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
12228 released.</p>
12229
12230 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
12231 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
12232 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
12233 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
12234
12235 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
12236 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
12237
12238 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
12239 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
12240 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
12241 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
12242 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
12243
12244       </div>
12245       <div class="tags">
12246
12247
12248         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>.
12249
12250
12251       </div>
12252     </div>
12253     <div class="padding"></div>
12254
12255     <div class="entry">
12256       <div class="title">
12257         <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>
12258       </div>
12259       <div class="date">
12260         24th June 2010
12261       </div>
12262       <div class="body">
12263         <p>A while back, I
12264 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
12265 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
12266 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
12267 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
12268
12269 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
12270 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
12271 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
12272 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
12273
12274 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
12275 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
12276 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
12277 Debian Edu.</p>
12278
12279 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
12280 the
12281 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
12282 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
12283 available today from IETF.</p>
12284
12285 <pre>
12286 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
12287 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
12288 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
12289  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
12290         NAME 'dhcpHost'
12291         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
12292 -       SUP top
12293 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
12294         MUST cn
12295         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
12296         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
12297 </pre>
12298
12299 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
12300 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
12301 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
12302
12303 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
12304 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
12305
12306       </div>
12307       <div class="tags">
12308
12309
12310         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>.
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/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html">Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</a>
12320       </div>
12321       <div class="date">
12322         16th June 2010
12323       </div>
12324       <div class="body">
12325         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
12326 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
12327 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
12328 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
12329 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
12330 this:
12331
12332 <blockquote><pre>
12333 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
12334 tasksel --new-install
12335 </pre></blockquote>
12336
12337 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
12338 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
12339 any output what so ever.
12340
12341 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
12342 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
12343 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
12344 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
12345 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
12346 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
12347 code like this:
12348
12349 <blockquote><pre>
12350 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
12351 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
12352 $cmd
12353 </pre></blockquote>
12354
12355 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
12356 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
12357 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
12358 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
12359 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
12360 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
12361 installation.</p>
12362
12363 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
12364 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
12365 like this.</p>
12366
12367       </div>
12368       <div class="tags">
12369
12370
12371         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>.
12372
12373
12374       </div>
12375     </div>
12376     <div class="padding"></div>
12377
12378     <div class="entry">
12379       <div class="title">
12380         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
12381       </div>
12382       <div class="date">
12383         13th June 2010
12384       </div>
12385       <div class="body">
12386         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
12387 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
12388 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
12389 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
12390 pages.</p>
12391
12392 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
12393 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
12394 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
12395 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
12396 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
12397 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
12398 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
12399 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
12400 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
12401 see how the project is doing.</p>
12402
12403 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
12404 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
12405 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
12406 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
12407 Windows.  This is great.</p>
12408
12409       </div>
12410       <div class="tags">
12411
12412
12413         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>.
12414
12415
12416       </div>
12417     </div>
12418     <div class="padding"></div>
12419
12420     <div class="entry">
12421       <div class="title">
12422         <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>
12423       </div>
12424       <div class="date">
12425         13th June 2010
12426       </div>
12427       <div class="body">
12428         <p>My
12429 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
12430 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
12431 finally made the upgrade logs available from
12432 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
12433 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
12434 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
12435 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
12436
12437 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
12438 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
12439 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
12440 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
12441 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
12442 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
12443 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
12444 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
12445
12446 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
12447 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
12448 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
12449 too surprising.</p>
12450
12451 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
12452 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
12453 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
12454 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
12455 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
12456 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
12457 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
12458 continue.</p>
12459
12460 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
12461 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
12462   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
12463   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
12464   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
12465   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
12466   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
12467   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
12468   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
12469   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
12470   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
12471   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
12472   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
12473   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
12474   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
12475   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
12476   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
12477   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
12478   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
12479   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
12480   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
12481   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
12482   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
12483   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
12484   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
12485   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
12486   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
12487   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
12488   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
12489   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
12490
12491 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
12492
12493 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
12494   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
12495   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
12496   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
12497   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
12498   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
12499   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
12500   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
12501   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
12502   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
12503   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
12504   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
12505   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
12506   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
12507   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
12508   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
12509   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
12510   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
12511   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
12512   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
12513   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
12514   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
12515   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
12516   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
12517   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
12518   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
12519   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
12520   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
12521   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
12522   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
12523   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
12524   zip</p>
12525
12526 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
12527
12528 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
12529   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
12530   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
12531   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
12532   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
12533   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
12534   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
12535   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
12536   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
12537   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
12538   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
12539   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
12540   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
12541   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
12542   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
12543   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
12544   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
12545   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
12546   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
12547   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
12548   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
12549   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
12550   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
12551   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
12552   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
12553   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
12554   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
12555   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
12556
12557 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
12558 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
12559   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
12560   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
12561   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
12562   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
12563   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
12564   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
12565   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
12566   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
12567   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
12568   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
12569   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
12570   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
12571   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
12572   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
12573   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
12574   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
12575   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
12576   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
12577   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
12578   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
12579   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
12580   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
12581   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
12582   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
12583   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
12584   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
12585   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
12586   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
12587   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
12588   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
12589   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
12590   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
12591   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
12592   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
12593   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
12594   xulrunner-1.9</p>
12595
12596
12597       </div>
12598       <div class="tags">
12599
12600
12601         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>.
12602
12603
12604       </div>
12605     </div>
12606     <div class="padding"></div>
12607
12608     <div class="entry">
12609       <div class="title">
12610         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
12611       </div>
12612       <div class="date">
12613         11th June 2010
12614       </div>
12615       <div class="body">
12616         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
12617 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
12618 have been discovered and reported in the process
12619 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
12620 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
12621 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
12622 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
12623 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
12624
12625 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
12626 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
12627 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
12628 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
12629 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
12630 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
12631
12632 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
12633 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
12634 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
12635 is created.  The bug report
12636 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
12637 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
12638 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
12639 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
12640 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
12641 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
12642 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
12643 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
12644 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
12645 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
12646 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
12647 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
12648 Debian Squeeze.</p>
12649
12650 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
12651 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
12652 trick:</p>
12653
12654 <blockquote><pre>
12655 #!/bin/sh
12656 set -ex
12657
12658 if [ "$1" ] ; then
12659     desktop=$1
12660 else
12661     desktop=gnome
12662 fi
12663
12664 from=lenny
12665 to=squeeze
12666
12667 exec &lt; /dev/null
12668 unset LANG
12669 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
12670 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
12671 fuser -mv .
12672 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
12673 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
12674 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
12675 #!/bin/sh
12676 exit 101
12677 EOF
12678 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
12679 exit_cleanup() {
12680     umount $tmpdir/proc
12681 }
12682 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
12683 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
12684 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
12685
12686 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
12687
12688 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
12689 # to return the correct answers.
12690 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
12691     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
12692
12693 # Include the desktop and laptop task
12694 for test in desktop laptop ; do
12695     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
12696 #!/bin/sh
12697 exit 2
12698 EOF
12699     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
12700 done
12701
12702 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
12703 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
12704 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
12705 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
12706
12707 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
12708 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
12709 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
12710 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
12711 fuser -mv
12712 </pre></blockquote>
12713
12714 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
12715 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
12716 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
12717 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
12718 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
12719 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
12720
12721 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
12722 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
12723 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
12724 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
12725 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
12726 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
12727 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
12728
12729 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
12730 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
12731 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
12732 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
12733 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
12734 packages.</p>
12735
12736       </div>
12737       <div class="tags">
12738
12739
12740         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>.
12741
12742
12743       </div>
12744     </div>
12745     <div class="padding"></div>
12746
12747     <div class="entry">
12748       <div class="title">
12749         <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>
12750       </div>
12751       <div class="date">
12752          6th June 2010
12753       </div>
12754       <div class="body">
12755         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
12756 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
12757 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
12758 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
12759 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
12760 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
12761 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
12762
12763 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
12764 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
12765 COLUMNS):</p>
12766
12767 <blockquote><pre>
12768 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
12769 previous=N
12770 PREVLEVEL=
12771 RUNLEVEL=
12772 runlevel=S
12773 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
12774 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
12775 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
12776 </pre></blockquote>
12777
12778 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
12779 script.</p>
12780
12781 <blockquote><pre>
12782 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
12783 previous=N
12784 PREVLEVEL=N
12785 RUNLEVEL=S
12786 runlevel=S
12787 </pre></blockquote>
12788
12789 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
12790 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
12791 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
12792
12793 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
12794 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
12795 choice.</p>
12796
12797       </div>
12798       <div class="tags">
12799
12800
12801         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>.
12802
12803
12804       </div>
12805     </div>
12806     <div class="padding"></div>
12807
12808     <div class="entry">
12809       <div class="title">
12810         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
12811       </div>
12812       <div class="date">
12813          6th June 2010
12814       </div>
12815       <div class="body">
12816         <p>Via the
12817 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
12818 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
12819 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
12820 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
12821 following the standards wars of today.</p>
12822
12823       </div>
12824       <div class="tags">
12825
12826
12827         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>.
12828
12829
12830       </div>
12831     </div>
12832     <div class="padding"></div>
12833
12834     <div class="entry">
12835       <div class="title">
12836         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</a>
12837       </div>
12838       <div class="date">
12839          3rd June 2010
12840       </div>
12841       <div class="body">
12842         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
12843 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
12844 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
12845 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
12846 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
12847
12848 <blockquote><pre>
12849 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
12850   vendor                    count
12851   Dell Computer Corporation     1
12852     PowerEdge 1750              1
12853   IBM                           1
12854     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
12855   Intel                         2
12856   [no-dmi-info]                 3
12857 maintainer:~#
12858 </pre></blockquote>
12859
12860 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
12861 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
12862 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
12863 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
12864 option to list the individual machines.</p>
12865
12866 <p>A larger list is
12867 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
12868 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
12869 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
12870 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
12871 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
12872 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
12873 collector.</p>
12874
12875       </div>
12876       <div class="tags">
12877
12878
12879         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>.
12880
12881
12882       </div>
12883     </div>
12884     <div class="padding"></div>
12885
12886     <div class="entry">
12887       <div class="title">
12888         <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>
12889       </div>
12890       <div class="date">
12891          1st June 2010
12892       </div>
12893       <div class="body">
12894         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
12895 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
12896 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
12897 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
12898 wait.</p>
12899
12900 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
12901 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
12902 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
12903 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
12904 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
12905 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
12906
12907 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
12908 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
12909 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
12910 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
12911 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
12912 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
12913 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
12914 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
12915
12916 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
12917
12918       </div>
12919       <div class="tags">
12920
12921
12922         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>.
12923
12924
12925       </div>
12926     </div>
12927     <div class="padding"></div>
12928
12929     <div class="entry">
12930       <div class="title">
12931         <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>
12932       </div>
12933       <div class="date">
12934         27th May 2010
12935       </div>
12936       <div class="body">
12937         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
12938 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
12939 issues are known and should be solved:
12940
12941 <p><ul>
12942
12943 <li>The wicd package seen to
12944 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
12945 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
12946 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
12947 seem to be on the case.</li>
12948
12949 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
12950 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
12951 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
12952 maintainer is on the case.</li>
12953
12954 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
12955 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
12956 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
12957 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
12958 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
12959 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
12960 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
12961 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
12962
12963 </ul></p>
12964
12965 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
12966 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
12967 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
12968 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
12969
12970 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
12971 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
12972 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
12973 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
12974
12975 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
12976
12977       </div>
12978       <div class="tags">
12979
12980
12981         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>.
12982
12983
12984       </div>
12985     </div>
12986     <div class="padding"></div>
12987
12988     <div class="entry">
12989       <div class="title">
12990         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
12991       </div>
12992       <div class="date">
12993         22nd May 2010
12994       </div>
12995       <div class="body">
12996         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
12997 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
12998 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
12999 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
13000
13001 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
13002 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
13003 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
13004 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
13005 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
13006 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
13007 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
13008 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
13009 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
13010 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
13011 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
13012 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
13013 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
13014 going to work.</p>
13015
13016 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
13017 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
13018 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
13019 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
13020 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
13021 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
13022 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
13023 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
13024 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
13025 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
13026 Edu.</p>
13027
13028 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
13029 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
13030 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
13031 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
13032 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
13033 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
13034
13035 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
13036 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
13037
13038       </div>
13039       <div class="tags">
13040
13041
13042         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>.
13043
13044
13045       </div>
13046     </div>
13047     <div class="padding"></div>
13048
13049     <div class="entry">
13050       <div class="title">
13051         <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>
13052       </div>
13053       <div class="date">
13054         19th May 2010
13055       </div>
13056       <div class="body">
13057         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
13058 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
13059 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
13060 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
13061 into unstable.  The
13062 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
13063 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
13064 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
13065 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
13066 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
13067 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
13068 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
13069
13070 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
13071 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
13072 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
13073 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
13074 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
13075 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
13076 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
13077 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
13078
13079 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
13080 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
13081 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
13082 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
13083 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
13084 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
13085 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
13086
13087 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
13088 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
13089 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
13090 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
13091 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
13092 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
13093 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
13094 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
13095 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
13096 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
13097 on the home directory servers.</p>
13098
13099 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
13100 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
13101 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
13102 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
13103 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
13104 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
13105
13106 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13107 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13108
13109       </div>
13110       <div class="tags">
13111
13112
13113         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13114
13115
13116       </div>
13117     </div>
13118     <div class="padding"></div>
13119
13120     <div class="entry">
13121       <div class="title">
13122         <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>
13123       </div>
13124       <div class="date">
13125         14th May 2010
13126       </div>
13127       <div class="body">
13128         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
13129 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
13130 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
13131 expected, if I am to believe the
13132 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
13133 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
13134 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
13135 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
13136 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
13137 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
13138 version.</p>
13139
13140 More information about
13141 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
13142 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
13143 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
13144 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
13145
13146 <blockquote><pre>
13147 CONCURRENCY=none
13148 </pre></blockquote>
13149
13150 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
13151 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
13152 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
13153 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
13154
13155       </div>
13156       <div class="tags">
13157
13158
13159         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>.
13160
13161
13162       </div>
13163     </div>
13164     <div class="padding"></div>
13165
13166     <div class="entry">
13167       <div class="title">
13168         <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>
13169       </div>
13170       <div class="date">
13171         14th May 2010
13172       </div>
13173       <div class="body">
13174         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
13175 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
13176 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
13177 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
13178 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
13179 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
13180 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
13181 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
13182
13183 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
13184 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
13185 this on the collector host:</p>
13186
13187 <blockquote><pre>
13188 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
13189 </pre></blockquote>
13190
13191 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
13192 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
13193
13194 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
13195 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
13196 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
13197 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
13198 written yet.</p>
13199
13200       </div>
13201       <div class="tags">
13202
13203
13204         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>.
13205
13206
13207       </div>
13208     </div>
13209     <div class="padding"></div>
13210
13211     <div class="entry">
13212       <div class="title">
13213         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
13214       </div>
13215       <div class="date">
13216         13th May 2010
13217       </div>
13218       <div class="body">
13219         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
13220 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
13221 has been
13222 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
13223
13224 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
13225 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
13226 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
13227 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
13228 based boot system.  Tollef is
13229 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
13230 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
13231 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
13232 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
13233 at the moment do not.</p>
13234
13235 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
13236 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
13237 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
13238 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
13239 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
13240 way forward.</p>
13241
13242 <p>In the mean time, based on the
13243 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
13244 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
13245 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
13246 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
13247 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
13248 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
13249 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
13250 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
13251
13252       </div>
13253       <div class="tags">
13254
13255
13256         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>.
13257
13258
13259       </div>
13260     </div>
13261     <div class="padding"></div>
13262
13263     <div class="entry">
13264       <div class="title">
13265         <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>
13266       </div>
13267       <div class="date">
13268          6th May 2010
13269       </div>
13270       <div class="body">
13271         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
13272 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
13273 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
13274 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
13275 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
13276 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
13277 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
13278
13279 <blockquote><pre>
13280 CONCURRENCY=makefile
13281 </pre></blockquote>
13282
13283 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
13284 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
13285 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
13286 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
13287 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
13288 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
13289 make this happen.</p>
13290
13291 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
13292 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
13293 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
13294 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
13295 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
13296
13297 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
13298 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
13299 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
13300 fix the remaining issues.</p>
13301
13302 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
13303 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
13304 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
13305 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
13306
13307       </div>
13308       <div class="tags">
13309
13310
13311         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>.
13312
13313
13314       </div>
13315     </div>
13316     <div class="padding"></div>
13317
13318     <div class="entry">
13319       <div class="title">
13320         <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>
13321       </div>
13322       <div class="date">
13323          2nd May 2010
13324       </div>
13325       <div class="body">
13326         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
13327 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
13328 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
13329
13330 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
13331 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
13332 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
13333 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
13334 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
13335
13336 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
13337 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
13338
13339 <blockquote><pre>
13340 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
13341 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
13342 Password expires                                        : never
13343 Password inactive                                       : never
13344 Account expires                                         : never
13345 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
13346 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
13347 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
13348 root@tjener:~#
13349 </pre></blockquote>
13350
13351 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
13352 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
13353 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
13354 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
13355 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
13356 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
13357
13358 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
13359 intended:</p>
13360
13361 <blockquote><pre>
13362 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
13363 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
13364 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
13365 Password expires                                        : never
13366 Password inactive                                       : never
13367 Account expires                                         : never
13368 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
13369 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
13370 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
13371 root@tjener:~#
13372 </pre></blockquote>
13373
13374 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
13375 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
13376 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
13377
13378 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
13379 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
13380
13381 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
13382 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13383
13384 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
13385 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
13386 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
13387 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
13388 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
13389 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
13390 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
13391
13392 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
13393 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
13394 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
13395 change.</p>
13396
13397       </div>
13398       <div class="tags">
13399
13400
13401         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13402
13403
13404       </div>
13405     </div>
13406     <div class="padding"></div>
13407
13408     <div class="entry">
13409       <div class="title">
13410         <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>
13411       </div>
13412       <div class="date">
13413         28th April 2010
13414       </div>
13415       <div class="body">
13416         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
13417 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
13418 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
13419 and go.</p>
13420
13421 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
13422 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
13423 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
13424 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
13425
13426 <ul>
13427
13428  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
13429    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
13430    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
13431    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
13432    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
13433    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
13434    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
13435    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
13436    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
13437    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
13438    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
13439    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
13440
13441  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
13442    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
13443    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
13444    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
13445    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
13446    or the Fedora developed
13447    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
13448    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
13449
13450  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
13451    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
13452    directory, using unison.</li>
13453
13454  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
13455    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
13456    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
13457    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
13458    implemented.</li>
13459
13460  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
13461    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
13462
13463  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
13464    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
13465    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
13466
13467 </ul>
13468
13469 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
13470 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
13471 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
13472 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
13473 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
13474 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
13475 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
13476 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
13477 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
13478
13479 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13480 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13481
13482       </div>
13483       <div class="tags">
13484
13485
13486         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13487
13488
13489       </div>
13490     </div>
13491     <div class="padding"></div>
13492
13493     <div class="entry">
13494       <div class="title">
13495         <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>
13496       </div>
13497       <div class="date">
13498         19th April 2010
13499       </div>
13500       <div class="body">
13501         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
13502 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
13503 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
13504 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
13505 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
13506 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
13507 restrictions on the web, for example from
13508 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
13509 epub-version from
13510 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
13511 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
13512 strongly recommend this book.</p>
13513
13514       </div>
13515       <div class="tags">
13516
13517
13518         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>.
13519
13520
13521       </div>
13522     </div>
13523     <div class="padding"></div>
13524
13525     <div class="entry">
13526       <div class="title">
13527         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
13528       </div>
13529       <div class="date">
13530         14th April 2010
13531       </div>
13532       <div class="body">
13533         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
13534 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
13535 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
13536 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
13537 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
13538 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
13539 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
13540 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
13541 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
13542
13543 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
13544 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
13545 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
13546 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
13547 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
13548
13549 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
13550 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
13551
13552 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
13553 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
13554 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
13555 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
13556 to work properly.</p>
13557
13558 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
13559 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
13560 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
13561 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
13562 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
13563 time.</p>
13564
13565 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
13566 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
13567 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
13568 up in a few days.</p>
13569
13570       </div>
13571       <div class="tags">
13572
13573
13574         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13575
13576
13577       </div>
13578     </div>
13579     <div class="padding"></div>
13580
13581     <div class="entry">
13582       <div class="title">
13583         <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>
13584       </div>
13585       <div class="date">
13586          6th March 2010
13587       </div>
13588       <div class="body">
13589         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
13590 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
13591 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
13592 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
13593 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
13594 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
13595
13596 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
13597 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
13598 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
13599 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
13600
13601 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
13602 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
13603 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
13604 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
13605 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
13606 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
13607
13608       </div>
13609       <div class="tags">
13610
13611
13612         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13613
13614
13615       </div>
13616     </div>
13617     <div class="padding"></div>
13618
13619     <div class="entry">
13620       <div class="title">
13621         <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>
13622       </div>
13623       <div class="date">
13624         11th February 2010
13625       </div>
13626       <div class="body">
13627         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
13628 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
13629 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
13630 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
13631 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
13632 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
13633 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
13634
13635 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
13636
13637 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
13638 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
13639 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
13640 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
13641
13642       </div>
13643       <div class="tags">
13644
13645
13646         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13647
13648
13649       </div>
13650     </div>
13651     <div class="padding"></div>
13652
13653     <div class="entry">
13654       <div class="title">
13655         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
13656       </div>
13657       <div class="date">
13658         27th January 2010
13659       </div>
13660       <div class="body">
13661         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
13662 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
13663 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
13664 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
13665 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
13666 further.</p>
13667
13668 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
13669 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
13670 configured to be a server for the
13671 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
13672 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
13673 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
13674 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
13675 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
13676 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
13677 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
13678 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
13679 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
13680 and Nagios configuration.</p>
13681
13682 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
13683 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
13684 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
13685 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
13686
13687 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
13688 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
13689 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
13690 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
13691 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
13692 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
13693 the machine.</p>
13694
13695 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
13696 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
13697 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
13698 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
13699
13700 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
13701 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
13702 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
13703 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
13704 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
13705 everything is taken care of.</p>
13706
13707       </div>
13708       <div class="tags">
13709
13710
13711         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13712
13713
13714       </div>
13715     </div>
13716     <div class="padding"></div>
13717
13718     <div class="entry">
13719       <div class="title">
13720         <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>
13721       </div>
13722       <div class="date">
13723         12th August 2009
13724       </div>
13725       <div class="body">
13726         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
13727 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
13728 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
13729 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
13730
13731 <table>
13732 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
13733 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
13734 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
13735 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
13736 </table>
13737
13738 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
13739 got these numbers:</p>
13740
13741 <table>
13742 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
13743 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
13744 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
13745 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
13746 </table>
13747
13748 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
13749
13750 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
13751 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
13752 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
13753 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
13754 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
13755
13756
13757 <table>
13758 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
13759 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
13760 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
13761 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
13762 </table>
13763
13764 <p>And with 'site:no':
13765
13766 <table>
13767 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
13768 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
13769 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
13770 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
13771 </table>
13772
13773 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
13774 numbers.</p>
13775
13776       </div>
13777       <div class="tags">
13778
13779
13780         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>.
13781
13782
13783       </div>
13784     </div>
13785     <div class="padding"></div>
13786
13787     <div class="entry">
13788       <div class="title">
13789         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
13790       </div>
13791       <div class="date">
13792          8th August 2009
13793       </div>
13794       <div class="body">
13795         <p>According to <a
13796 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
13797 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
13798 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
13799 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
13800 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
13801 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
13802 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
13803 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
13804 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
13805 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
13806
13807 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
13808 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
13809 seminar this autumn.</p>
13810
13811       </div>
13812       <div class="tags">
13813
13814
13815         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>.
13816
13817
13818       </div>
13819     </div>
13820     <div class="padding"></div>
13821
13822     <div class="entry">
13823       <div class="title">
13824         <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>
13825       </div>
13826       <div class="date">
13827         27th July 2009
13828       </div>
13829       <div class="body">
13830         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
13831 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
13832 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
13833 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
13834 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
13835 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
13836 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
13837
13838 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
13839 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
13840 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
13841
13842       </div>
13843       <div class="tags">
13844
13845
13846         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13847
13848
13849       </div>
13850     </div>
13851     <div class="padding"></div>
13852
13853     <div class="entry">
13854       <div class="title">
13855         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
13856       </div>
13857       <div class="date">
13858         22nd July 2009
13859       </div>
13860       <div class="body">
13861         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
13862 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
13863 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
13864 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
13865 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
13866 the package up to date.</p>
13867
13868 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
13869 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
13870 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
13871 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
13872 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
13873 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
13874 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
13875 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
13876 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
13877 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
13878 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
13879 working on the future release.</p>
13880
13881 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
13882 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
13883
13884       </div>
13885       <div class="tags">
13886
13887
13888         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>.
13889
13890
13891       </div>
13892     </div>
13893     <div class="padding"></div>
13894
13895     <div class="entry">
13896       <div class="title">
13897         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
13898       </div>
13899       <div class="date">
13900         24th June 2009
13901       </div>
13902       <div class="body">
13903         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
13904 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
13905 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
13906 funded
13907 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
13908 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
13909 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
13910 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
13911 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
13912 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
13913
13914 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
13915 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
13916 boot:</p>
13917
13918 <ul>
13919
13920 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
13921
13922 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
13923    clock is in UTC.</li>
13924
13925 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
13926    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
13927    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
13928
13929 </ul>
13930
13931 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
13932 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
13933 Villegas</a>.
13934
13935 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
13936 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
13937 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
13938 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
13939 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
13940 using this.</p>
13941
13942 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
13943 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
13944 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
13945 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
13946 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
13947 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
13948 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
13949
13950       </div>
13951       <div class="tags">
13952
13953
13954         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>.
13955
13956
13957       </div>
13958     </div>
13959     <div class="padding"></div>
13960
13961     <div class="entry">
13962       <div class="title">
13963         <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>
13964       </div>
13965       <div class="date">
13966          2nd May 2009
13967       </div>
13968       <div class="body">
13969         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
13970 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
13971 do not yet know them.</p>
13972
13973 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
13974 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
13975 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
13976 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
13977 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
13978 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
13979 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
13980 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
13981 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
13982 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
13983 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
13984
13985 <p>The second one is
13986 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
13987 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
13988 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
13989 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
13990 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
13991 and the company behind it is running
13992 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
13993 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
13994 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
13995 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
13996 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
13997 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
13998 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
13999 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
14000
14001 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
14002 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
14003 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
14004 surrounded by today.</p>
14005
14006       </div>
14007       <div class="tags">
14008
14009
14010         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>.
14011
14012
14013       </div>
14014     </div>
14015     <div class="padding"></div>
14016
14017     <div class="entry">
14018       <div class="title">
14019         <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>
14020       </div>
14021       <div class="date">
14022         28th April 2009
14023       </div>
14024       <div class="body">
14025         <p>Julien Blache
14026 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
14027 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
14028 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
14029 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
14030 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
14031 properties.</p>
14032
14033       </div>
14034       <div class="tags">
14035
14036
14037         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>.
14038
14039
14040       </div>
14041     </div>
14042     <div class="padding"></div>
14043
14044     <div class="entry">
14045       <div class="title">
14046         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
14047       </div>
14048       <div class="date">
14049          5th April 2009
14050       </div>
14051       <div class="body">
14052         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
14053 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
14054 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
14055 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
14056 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
14057 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
14058 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
14059 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
14060
14061 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
14062 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
14063 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
14064   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
14065   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
14066
14067 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
14068 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
14069 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
14070 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
14071
14072 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
14073 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
14074 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
14075 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
14076
14077 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
14078 set -e
14079 URL="$1"
14080 SAVEFILE="$2"
14081 DURATION="$3"
14082 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
14083   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
14084   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
14085 pid=$!
14086 sleep $DURATION
14087 kill $pid
14088 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
14089
14090       </div>
14091       <div class="tags">
14092
14093
14094         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>.
14095
14096
14097       </div>
14098     </div>
14099     <div class="padding"></div>
14100
14101     <div class="entry">
14102       <div class="title">
14103         <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>
14104       </div>
14105       <div class="date">
14106         30th March 2009
14107       </div>
14108       <div class="body">
14109         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
14110 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
14111 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
14112 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
14113 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
14114 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
14115 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
14116 application.</p>
14117
14118 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
14119 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
14120 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
14121 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
14122 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
14123 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
14124 blocked from doing so.</p>
14125
14126 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
14127 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
14128 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
14129 requirements change.</p>
14130
14131 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
14132 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
14133 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
14134
14135       </div>
14136       <div class="tags">
14137
14138
14139         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>.
14140
14141
14142       </div>
14143     </div>
14144     <div class="padding"></div>
14145
14146     <div class="entry">
14147       <div class="title">
14148         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
14149       </div>
14150       <div class="date">
14151         29th March 2009
14152       </div>
14153       <div class="body">
14154         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
14155 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
14156 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
14157 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
14158 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
14159 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
14160 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
14161 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
14162 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
14163 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
14164 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
14165 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
14166 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
14167 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
14168 now. :)</p>
14169
14170       </div>
14171       <div class="tags">
14172
14173
14174         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>.
14175
14176
14177       </div>
14178     </div>
14179     <div class="padding"></div>
14180
14181     <div class="entry">
14182       <div class="title">
14183         <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>
14184       </div>
14185       <div class="date">
14186         29th March 2009
14187       </div>
14188       <div class="body">
14189         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
14190 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
14191 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
14192 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
14193 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
14194 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
14195
14196 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
14197 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
14198 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
14199 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
14200 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
14201 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
14202 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
14203 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
14204 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
14205 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
14206 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
14207 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
14208 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
14209
14210 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
14211 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
14212 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
14213 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
14214
14215 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
14216 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
14217
14218 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
14219 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
14220 new IETF work group?</p>
14221
14222       </div>
14223       <div class="tags">
14224
14225
14226         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>.
14227
14228
14229       </div>
14230     </div>
14231     <div class="padding"></div>
14232
14233     <div class="entry">
14234       <div class="title">
14235         <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>
14236       </div>
14237       <div class="date">
14238         28th February 2009
14239       </div>
14240       <div class="body">
14241         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
14242 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
14243 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
14244 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
14245 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
14246 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
14247 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
14248 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
14249 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
14250 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
14251 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
14252 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
14253 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
14254 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
14255 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
14256 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
14257 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
14258 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
14259 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
14260 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
14261 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
14262 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
14263 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
14264 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
14265 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
14266 machine.</p>
14267
14268 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
14269 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
14270 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
14271 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
14272 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
14273 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
14274 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
14275
14276 <pre>
14277 use LWP::Simple;
14278 use POSIX;
14279 use WWW::Mechanize;
14280 use Date::Parse;
14281 [...]
14282 sub get_support_info {
14283     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
14284     my $str;
14285
14286     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
14287         # fetch website from Dell support
14288         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";
14289         my $webpage = get($url);
14290         return undef unless ($webpage);
14291
14292         my $daysleft = -1;
14293         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
14294         foreach my $line (@lines) {
14295             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
14296             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
14297             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
14298
14299             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
14300             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
14301             my $lastend = "";
14302             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
14303                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
14304
14305                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
14306                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
14307                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
14308                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
14309                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
14310                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
14311                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
14312             }
14313             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
14314             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
14315                 if ($lastend lt $today);
14316         }
14317     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
14318         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
14319         my $url =
14320             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
14321         $mech->get($url);
14322         my $fields = {
14323             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
14324             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
14325             'country' => 'NO',
14326             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
14327             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
14328         };
14329         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
14330                             fields      => $fields );
14331         # Next step is screen scraping
14332         my $content = $mech->content();
14333
14334         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
14335         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
14336         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
14337         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
14338
14339         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
14340
14341         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
14342             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
14343                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
14344             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
14345             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
14346                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
14347             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
14348                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
14349
14350             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
14351
14352             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
14353                 if ($end lt $today);
14354         }
14355     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
14356         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
14357         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
14358         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
14359             my $content =
14360                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
14361             if ($content) {
14362                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
14363                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
14364                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
14365                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
14366
14367                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
14368                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
14369
14370                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
14371
14372                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
14373                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
14374                     if ($end lt $today);
14375             }
14376         }
14377     }
14378     return $str;
14379 }
14380 </pre>
14381
14382 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
14383 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
14384 from dmidecode.</p>
14385
14386 <pre>
14387 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
14388                        "447707-B21");
14389 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
14390 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
14391                        "1234567");
14392 </pre>
14393
14394 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
14395 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
14396
14397 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
14398 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
14399 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
14400 do so.</p>
14401
14402       </div>
14403       <div class="tags">
14404
14405
14406         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>.
14407
14408
14409       </div>
14410     </div>
14411     <div class="padding"></div>
14412
14413     <div class="entry">
14414       <div class="title">
14415         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
14416       </div>
14417       <div class="date">
14418         20th February 2009
14419       </div>
14420       <div class="body">
14421         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
14422 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
14423 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
14424 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
14425 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
14426 the "missing" computer.</p>
14427
14428 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
14429 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
14430 code blocks as defined in the
14431 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
14432 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
14433 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
14434 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
14435 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
14436 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
14437 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
14438 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
14439 codes.</p>
14440
14441 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
14442 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
14443 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
14444 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
14445 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
14446 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
14447
14448 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
14449 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
14450 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
14451 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
14452 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
14453 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
14454 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
14455 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
14456 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
14457 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
14458
14459 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
14460 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
14461 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
14462
14463       </div>
14464       <div class="tags">
14465
14466
14467         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>.
14468
14469
14470       </div>
14471     </div>
14472     <div class="padding"></div>
14473
14474     <div class="entry">
14475       <div class="title">
14476         <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>
14477       </div>
14478       <div class="date">
14479         17th January 2009
14480       </div>
14481       <div class="body">
14482         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
14483 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
14484 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
14485 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
14486 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
14487 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
14488 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
14489 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
14490 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
14491 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
14492 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
14493 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
14494 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
14495 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
14496
14497 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
14498 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
14499 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
14500 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
14501 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
14502 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
14503 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
14504 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
14505 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
14506 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
14507 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
14508 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
14509 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
14510 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
14511 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
14512 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
14513 playing when the download is done.</p>
14514
14515 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
14516 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
14517 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
14518 too.</p>
14519
14520 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
14521 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
14522 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
14523 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
14524
14525       </div>
14526       <div class="tags">
14527
14528
14529         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>.
14530
14531
14532       </div>
14533     </div>
14534     <div class="padding"></div>
14535
14536     <div class="entry">
14537       <div class="title">
14538         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
14539       </div>
14540       <div class="date">
14541         28th December 2008
14542       </div>
14543       <div class="body">
14544         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
14545 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
14546 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
14547 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
14548 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
14549 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
14550 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
14551 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
14552 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
14553 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
14554 source, sink and mixer applications and
14555 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
14556 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
14557 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
14558 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
14559 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
14560 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
14561 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
14562 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
14563 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
14564
14565 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
14566 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
14567 larger stick as well.</p>
14568
14569       </div>
14570       <div class="tags">
14571
14572
14573         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>.
14574
14575
14576       </div>
14577     </div>
14578     <div class="padding"></div>
14579
14580     <div class="entry">
14581       <div class="title">
14582         <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>
14583       </div>
14584       <div class="date">
14585          7th December 2008
14586       </div>
14587       <div class="body">
14588         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
14589 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
14590 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
14591 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
14592 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
14593 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
14594 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
14595 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
14596
14597 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
14598 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
14599 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
14600 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
14601 of these cards.</p>
14602
14603       </div>
14604       <div class="tags">
14605
14606
14607         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>.
14608
14609
14610       </div>
14611     </div>
14612     <div class="padding"></div>
14613
14614     <div class="entry">
14615       <div class="title">
14616         <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>
14617       </div>
14618       <div class="date">
14619         25th November 2008
14620       </div>
14621       <div class="body">
14622         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
14623 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
14624 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
14625 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
14626 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
14627 notes are available on
14628 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
14629 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
14630 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
14631 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
14632 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
14633 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
14634 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
14635 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
14636 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
14637
14638 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
14639 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
14640
14641       </div>
14642       <div class="tags">
14643
14644
14645         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>.
14646
14647
14648       </div>
14649     </div>
14650     <div class="padding"></div>
14651
14652     <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>
14653     <div id="sidebar">
14654
14655
14656
14657 <h2>Archive</h2>
14658 <ul>
14659
14660 <li>2013
14661 <ul>
14662
14663 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
14664
14665 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
14666
14667 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
14668
14669 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
14670
14671 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (5)</a></li>
14672
14673 </ul></li>
14674
14675 <li>2012
14676 <ul>
14677
14678 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
14679
14680 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
14681
14682 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
14683
14684 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
14685
14686 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
14687
14688 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
14689
14690 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
14691
14692 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
14693
14694 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
14695
14696 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
14697
14698 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
14699
14700 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
14701
14702 </ul></li>
14703
14704 <li>2011
14705 <ul>
14706
14707 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
14708
14709 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
14710
14711 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
14712
14713 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
14714
14715 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
14716
14717 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
14718
14719 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
14720
14721 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
14722
14723 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
14724
14725 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
14726
14727 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
14728
14729 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
14730
14731 </ul></li>
14732
14733 <li>2010
14734 <ul>
14735
14736 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
14737
14738 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
14739
14740 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
14741
14742 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
14743
14744 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
14745
14746 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
14747
14748 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
14749
14750 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
14751
14752 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
14753
14754 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
14755
14756 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
14757
14758 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
14759
14760 </ul></li>
14761
14762 <li>2009
14763 <ul>
14764
14765 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
14766
14767 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
14768
14769 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
14770
14771 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
14772
14773 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
14774
14775 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
14776
14777 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
14778
14779 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
14780
14781 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
14782
14783 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
14784
14785 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
14786
14787 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
14788
14789 </ul></li>
14790
14791 <li>2008
14792 <ul>
14793
14794 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
14795
14796 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
14797
14798 </ul></li>
14799
14800 </ul>
14801
14802
14803
14804 <h2>Tags</h2>
14805 <ul>
14806
14807  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
14808
14809  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
14810
14811  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
14812
14813  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
14814
14815  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (7)</a></li>
14816
14817  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
14818
14819  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
14820
14821  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (73)</a></li>
14822
14823  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (126)</a></li>
14824
14825  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
14826
14827  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (9)</a></li>
14828
14829  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
14830
14831  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (191)</a></li>
14832
14833  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
14834
14835  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
14836
14837  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (11)</a></li>
14838
14839  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
14840
14841  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (33)</a></li>
14842
14843  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (6)</a></li>
14844
14845  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
14846
14847  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
14848
14849  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
14850
14851  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
14852
14853  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
14854
14855  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (232)</a></li>
14856
14857  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (152)</a></li>
14858
14859  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (8)</a></li>
14860
14861  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
14862
14863  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (44)</a></li>
14864
14865  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (65)</a></li>
14866
14867  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
14868
14869  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
14870
14871  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
14872
14873  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (7)</a></li>
14874
14875  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
14876
14877  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
14878
14879  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
14880
14881  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (29)</a></li>
14882
14883  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
14884
14885  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
14886
14887  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (42)</a></li>
14888
14889  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
14890
14891  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (7)</a></li>
14892
14893  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (15)</a></li>
14894
14895  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
14896
14897  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (7)</a></li>
14898
14899  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (38)</a></li>
14900
14901  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
14902
14903  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (26)</a></li>
14904
14905 </ul>
14906
14907
14908     </div>
14909     <p style="text-align: right">
14910  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
14911 </p>
14912
14913   </body>
14914 </html>