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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "english".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_car_computer_solution_.html">Free software car computer solution?</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         29th May 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>Dear lazyweb.  I'm planning to set up a small Raspberry Pi computer
  32 in my car, connected to
  33 <a href="http://www.dx.com/p/400a-4-0-tft-lcd-digital-monitor-for-vehicle-parking-reverse-camera-1440x272-12v-dc-57776">a
  34 small screen</a> next to the rear mirror.  I plan to hook it up with a
  35 GPL and a USB wifi card too.  The idea is to get my own
  36 "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carputer">Carputer</a>".  But I
  37 wonder if someone already created a good free software solution for
  38 such car computer.</p>
  39
  40 <p>This is my current wish list for such system:</p>
  41
  42 <ul>
  43
  44  <li>Work on Raspberry Pi.</li>
  45
  46  <li>Show current speed limit based on location, and warn if going too
  47    fast (for example using color codes yellow and red on the screen,
  48    or make a sound).  This could be done either using either data from
  49    <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">Openstreetmap</a> or OCR
  50    info gathered from a dashboard camera.</li>
  51
  52  <li>Track automatic toll road passes and their cost, show total spent
  53    and make it possible to calculate toll costs for planned
  54    route.</li>
  55
  56  <li>Collect GPX tracks for use with OpenStreetMap.</li>
  57
  58  <li>Automatically detect and use any wireless connection to connect
  59    to home server.  Try IP over DNS
  60    (<a href="http://dev.kryo.se/iodine/">iodine</a>) or ICMP
  61    (<a href="http://code.gerade.org/hans/">Hans</a>) if direct
  62    connection do not work.</li>
  63
  64  <li>Set up mesh network to talk to other cars with the same system,
  65    or some stanard car mesh protocol.</li>
  66
  67  <li>Warn when approaching speed cameras and speed camera ranges
  68    (speed calculated between two cameras).</li>
  69
  70  <li>Suport dashboard/front facing camera to discover speed limits and
  71    run OCR to track registration number of passing cars.</li>
  72
  73 </ul>
  74
  75 <p>If you know of any free software car computer system supporting
  76 some or all of these features, please let me know.</p>
  77
  78       </div>
  79       <div class="tags">
  80
  81
  82         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
  83
  84
  85       </div>
  86     </div>
  87     <div class="padding"></div>
  88
  89     <div class="entry">
  90       <div class="title">
  91         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_the_Coverity_issues_in_Gnash_fixed_in_the_next_release.html">Half the Coverity issues in Gnash fixed in the next release</a>
  92       </div>
  93       <div class="date">
  94         29th April 2014
  95       </div>
  96       <div class="body">
  97         <p>I've been following <a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">the Gnash
  98 project</a> for quite a while now.  It is a free software
  99 implementation of Adobe Flash, both a standalone player and a browser
 100 plugin.  Gnash implement support for the AVM1 format (and not the
 101 newer AVM2 format - see
 102 <a href="http://lightspark.github.io/">Lightspark</a> for that one),
 103 allowing several flash based sites to work.  Thanks to the friendly
 104 developers at Youtube, it also work with Youtube videos, because the
 105 Javascript code at Youtube detect Gnash and serve a AVM1 player to
 106 those users. :) Would be great if someone found time to implement AVM2
 107 support, but it has not happened yet.  If you install both Lightspark
 108 and Gnash, Lightspark will invoke Gnash if it find a AVM1 flash file,
 109 so you can get both handled as free software.  Unfortunately,
 110 Lightspark so far only implement a small subset of AVM2, and many
 111 sites do not work yet.</p>
 112
 113 <p>A few months ago, I started looking at
 114 <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/">Coverity</a>, the static source
 115 checker used to find heaps and heaps of bugs in free software (thanks
 116 to the donation of a scanning service to free software projects by the
 117 company developing this non-free code checker), and Gnash was one of
 118 the projects I decided to check out.  Coverity is able to find lock
 119 errors, memory errors, dead code and more.  A few days ago they even
 120 extended it to also be able to find the heartbleed bug in OpenSSL.
 121 There are heaps of checks being done on the instrumented code, and the
 122 amount of bogus warnings is quite low compared to the other static
 123 code checkers I have tested over the years.</p>
 124
 125 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I've been working with the other Gnash
 126 developers squashing bugs discovered by Coverity.  I was quite happy
 127 today when I checked the current status and saw that of the 777 issues
 128 detected so far, 374 are marked as fixed.  This make me confident that
 129 the next Gnash release will be more stable and more dependable than
 130 the previous one.  Most of the reported issues were and are in the
 131 test suite, but it also found a few in the rest of the code.</p>
 132
 133 <p>If you want to help out, you find us on
 134 <a href="https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash-dev">the
 135 gnash-dev mailing list</a> and on
 136 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#gnash">the #gnash channel on
 137 irc.freenode.net IRC server</a>.</p>
 138
 139       </div>
 140       <div class="tags">
 141
 142
 143         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>.
 144
 145
 146       </div>
 147     </div>
 148     <div class="padding"></div>
 149
 150     <div class="entry">
 151       <div class="title">
 152         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
 153       </div>
 154       <div class="date">
 155         23rd April 2014
 156       </div>
 157       <div class="body">
 158         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
 159 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
 160 So I implemented one, using
 161 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
 162 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
 163 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
 164 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
 165 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
 166 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
 167
 168 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
 169 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
 170 packages to install.  The first part is in
 171 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
 172 this:</p>
 173
 174 <p><blockquote><pre>
 175 Task: isenkram
 176 Section: hardware
 177 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 178  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 179  proposed.
 180 Test-new-install: mark show
 181 Relevance: 8
 182 Packages: for-current-hardware
 183 </pre></blockquote></p>
 184
 185 <p>The second part is in
 186 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
 187 this:</p>
 188
 189 <p><blockquote><pre>
 190 #!/bin/sh
 191 #
 192 (
 193     isenkram-lookup
 194     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 195 ) | sort -u
 196 </pre></blockquote></p>
 197
 198 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
 199 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
 200 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
 201 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
 202 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
 203 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
 204
 205 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
 206 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
 207 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
 208 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
 209 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
 210 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
 211 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
 212 the python-apt code (bug
 213 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
 214 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
 215 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
 216 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
 217 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
 218 unstable today.</p>
 219
 220 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
 221 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
 222 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
 223 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
 224 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
 225 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
 226 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
 227 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
 228 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
 229
 230 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
 231 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
 232 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
 233 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
 234 package.  See also
 235 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
 236 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
 237 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
 238 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
 239
 240       </div>
 241       <div class="tags">
 242
 243
 244         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>.
 245
 246
 247       </div>
 248     </div>
 249     <div class="padding"></div>
 250
 251     <div class="entry">
 252       <div class="title">
 253         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
 254       </div>
 255       <div class="date">
 256         15th April 2014
 257       </div>
 258       <div class="body">
 259         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
 260 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
 261 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
 262 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
 263 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
 264 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
 265
 266 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
 267 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
 268 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
 269 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
 270 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
 271 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
 272 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
 273
 274 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
 275 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
 276 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
 277 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
 278 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
 279 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
 280 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
 281 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
 282 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
 283 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
 284 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
 285 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
 286
 287 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
 288 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
 289 become root:</p>
 290
 291 <p><pre>
 292 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
 293   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
 294   u-boot-tools
 295 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
 296   freedom-maker
 297 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
 298 </pre></p>
 299
 300 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
 301 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
 302 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
 303 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
 304 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
 305 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
 306 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
 307 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
 308
 309 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
 310 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
 311 the preseed values:</p>
 312
 313 <p><pre>
 314 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
 315 </pre></p>
 316
 317 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
 318 it still work.</p>
 319
 320 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
 321 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
 322 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
 323 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
 324 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
 325 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
 326 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
 327
 328 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
 329 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
 330 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
 331 irc.debian.org)</a> and
 332 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
 333 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
 334
 335       </div>
 336       <div class="tags">
 337
 338
 339         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
 340
 341
 342       </div>
 343     </div>
 344     <div class="padding"></div>
 345
 346     <div class="entry">
 347       <div class="title">
 348         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
 349       </div>
 350       <div class="date">
 351          9th April 2014
 352       </div>
 353       <div class="body">
 354         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
 355 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
 356 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
 357 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
 358 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
 359 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
 360 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
 361 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
 362 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
 363 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
 364 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
 365 have looked at a system called
 366 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
 367 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
 368
 369 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
 370 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
 371 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
 372 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
 373 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
 374 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
 375 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
 376 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
 377 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
 378 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
 379 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
 380 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
 381 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
 382
 383 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
 384 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
 385 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
 386 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
 387 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
 388 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
 389 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
 390 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
 391 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
 392 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
 393 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
 394 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
 395 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
 396 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
 397 account.</p>
 398
 399 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
 400 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
 401 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
 402 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
 403 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
 404 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
 405 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
 406
 407 <p><blockquote><pre>
 408 [s3c]
 409 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
 410 backend-login: API-login
 411 backend-password: API-password
 412 fs-passphrase: local-password
 413 </pre></blockquote></p>
 414
 415 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
 416 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
 417 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
 418 details and password to create it:</p>
 419
 420 <p><blockquote><pre>
 421 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
 422 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
 423   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
 424 Enter backend login:
 425 Enter backend password:
 426 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
 427 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
 428 Enter encryption password:
 429 Confirm encryption password:
 430 Generating random encryption key...
 431 Creating metadata tables...
 432 Dumping metadata...
 433 ..objects..
 434 ..blocks..
 435 ..inodes..
 436 ..inode_blocks..
 437 ..symlink_targets..
 438 ..names..
 439 ..contents..
 440 ..ext_attributes..
 441 Compressing and uploading metadata...
 442 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
 443 # </pre></blockquote></p>
 444
 445 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
 446
 447 <p><blockquote><pre>
 448 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
 449   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
 450 Using 4 upload threads.
 451 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
 452 Reading metadata...
 453 ..objects..
 454 ..blocks..
 455 ..inodes..
 456 ..inode_blocks..
 457 ..symlink_targets..
 458 ..names..
 459 ..contents..
 460 ..ext_attributes..
 461 Mounting filesystem...
 462 # df -h /s3ql
 463 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
 464 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
 465 #
 466 </pre></blockquote></p>
 467
 468 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
 469 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
 470 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
 471 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
 472 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
 473 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
 474
 475 <p><blockquote><pre>
 476 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
 477 #
 478 </pre></blockquote></p>
 479
 480 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
 481 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
 482 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
 483 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
 484 file system:</p>
 485
 486 <p><blockquote><pre>
 487 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
 488 Using cached metadata.
 489 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
 490 Checking DB integrity...
 491 Creating temporary extra indices...
 492 Checking lost+found...
 493 Checking cached objects...
 494 Checking names (refcounts)...
 495 Checking contents (names)...
 496 Checking contents (inodes)...
 497 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
 498 Checking objects (reference counts)...
 499 Checking objects (backend)...
 500 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
 501 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
 502 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
 503 Checking objects (sizes)...
 504 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
 505 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
 506 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
 507 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
 508 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
 509 Checking inodes (sizes)...
 510 Checking extended attributes (names)...
 511 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
 512 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
 513 Checking directory reachability...
 514 Checking unix conventions...
 515 Checking referential integrity...
 516 Dropping temporary indices...
 517 Backing up old metadata...
 518 Dumping metadata...
 519 ..objects..
 520 ..blocks..
 521 ..inodes..
 522 ..inode_blocks..
 523 ..symlink_targets..
 524 ..names..
 525 ..contents..
 526 ..ext_attributes..
 527 Compressing and uploading metadata...
 528 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
 529 #
 530 </pre></blockquote></p>
 531
 532 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
 533 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
 534 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
 535 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
 536 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
 537 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
 538 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
 539 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
 540 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
 541 working set.</p>
 542
 543 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
 544 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
 545 busy:</p>
 546
 547 <p><blockquote><pre>
 548 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
 549   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
 550 Using 8 upload threads.
 551 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
 552 #
 553 </pre></blockquote></p>
 554
 555 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
 556 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
 557 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
 558 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
 559 s3qlctrl:
 560
 561 <p><blockquote><pre>
 562 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
 563 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
 564 #
 565 </pre></blockquote></p>
 566
 567 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
 568 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
 569 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
 570 a report:</p>
 571
 572 <p><blockquote><pre>
 573 # s3qlstat /s3ql
 574 Directory entries:    9141
 575 Inodes:               9143
 576 Data blocks:          8851
 577 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
 578 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
 579 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
 580 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
 581 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
 582 #
 583 </pre></blockquote></p>
 584
 585 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
 586 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
 587 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
 588 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
 589 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
 590 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
 591 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
 592 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
 593 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
 594 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
 595 best.</p>
 596
 597 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
 598 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
 599 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
 600 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
 601 poster is titled
 602 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
 603 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
 604 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
 605 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
 606 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
 607
 608 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
 609 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
 610 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
 611 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
 612 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
 613 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
 614 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
 615 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
 616
 617 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
 618 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
 619 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
 620 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
 621 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
 622 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
 623 only read from it.</p>
 624
 625 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 626 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 627 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 628
 629       </div>
 630       <div class="tags">
 631
 632
 633         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 634
 635
 636       </div>
 637     </div>
 638     <div class="padding"></div>
 639
 640     <div class="entry">
 641       <div class="title">
 642         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ReactOS_Windows_clone___nice_free_software.html">ReactOS Windows clone - nice free software</a>
 643       </div>
 644       <div class="date">
 645          1st April 2014
 646       </div>
 647       <div class="body">
 648         <p>Microsoft have announced that Windows XP reaches its end of life
 649 2014-04-08, in 7 days.  But there are heaps of machines still running
 650 Windows XP, and depending on Windows XP to run their applications, and
 651 upgrading will be expensive, both when it comes to money and when it
 652 comes to the amount of effort needed to migrate from Windows XP to a
 653 new operating system.  Some obvious options (buy new a Windows
 654 machine, buy a MacOSX machine, install Linux on the existing machine)
 655 are already well known and covered elsewhere.  Most of them involve
 656 leaving the user applications installed on Windows XP behind and
 657 trying out replacements or updated versions. In this blog post I want
 658 to mention one strange bird that allow people to keep the hardware and
 659 the existing Windows XP applications and run them on a free software
 660 operating system that is Windows XP compatible.</p>
 661
 662 <p><a href="http://www.reactos.org/">ReactOS</a> is a free software
 663 operating system (GNU GPL licensed) working on providing a operating
 664 system that is binary compatible with Windows, able to run windows
 665 programs directly and to use Windows drivers for hardware directly.
 666 The project goal is for Windows user to keep their existing machines,
 667 drivers and software, and gain the advantages from user a operating
 668 system without usage limitations caused by non-free licensing.  It is
 669 a Windows clone running directly on the hardware, so quite different
 670 from the approach taken by <a href="http://www.winehq.org/">the Wine
 671 project</a>, which make it possible to run Windows binaries on
 672 Linux.</p>
 673
 674 <p>The ReactOS project share code with the Wine project, so most
 675 shared libraries available on Windows are already implemented already.
 676 There is also a software manager like the one we are used to on Linux,
 677 allowing the user to install free software applications with a simple
 678 click directly from the Internet.  Check out the
 679 <a href="http://www.reactos.org/screenshots">screen shots on the
 680 project web site</a> for an idea what it look like (it looks just like
 681 Windows before metro).</p>
 682
 683 <p>I do not use ReactOS myself, preferring Linux and Unix like
 684 operating systems.  I've tested it, and it work fine in a virt-manager
 685 virtual machine.  The browser, minesweeper, notepad etc is working
 686 fine as far as I can tell.  Unfortunately, my main test application
 687 is the software included on a CD with the Lego Mindstorms NXT, which
 688 seem to install just fine from CD but fail to leave any binaries on
 689 the disk after the installation.  So no luck with that test software.
 690 No idea why, but hope someone else figure out and fix the problem.
 691 I've tried the ReactOS Live ISO on a physical machine, and it seemed
 692 to work just fine.  If you like Windows and want to keep running your
 693 old Windows binaries, check it out by
 694 <a href="http://www.reactos.org/download">downloading</a> the
 695 installation CD, the live CD or the preinstalled virtual machine
 696 image.</p>
 697
 698       </div>
 699       <div class="tags">
 700
 701
 702         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos</a>.
 703
 704
 705       </div>
 706     </div>
 707     <div class="padding"></div>
 708
 709     <div class="entry">
 710       <div class="title">
 711         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Roger_Marsal.html">Debian Edu interview: Roger Marsal</a>
 712       </div>
 713       <div class="date">
 714         30th March 2014
 715       </div>
 716       <div class="body">
 717         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
 718 keep gaining new users.  Some weeks ago, a person showed up on IRC,
 719 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>, with a
 720 wish to contribute, and I managed to get a interview with this great
 721 contributor Roger Marsal to learn more about his background.</p>
 722
 723 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 724
 725 <p>My name is Roger Marsal, I'm 27 years old (1986 generation) and I
 726 live in Barcelona, Spain. I've got a strong business background and I
 727 work as a patrimony manager and as a real estate agent.  Additionally,
 728 I've co-founded a British based tech company that is nowadays on the
 729 last development phase of a new social networking concept.</p>
 730
 731 <p>I'm a Linux enthusiast that started its journey with Ubuntu four years
 732 ago and have recently switched to Debian seeking rock solid stability
 733 and as a necessary step to gain expertise.</p>
 734
 735 <p>In a nutshell, I spend my days working and learning as much as I
 736 can to face both my job, entrepreneur project and feed my Linux
 737 hunger.</p>
 738
 739 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
 740 project?</strong></p>
 741
 742 <p>I discovered the <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP</a> advantages
 743 with "Ubuntu 12.04 alternate install" and after a year of use I
 744 started looking for an alternative.  Even though I highly value and
 745 respect the Ubuntu project, I thought it was necessary for me to
 746 change to a more robust and stable alternative.  As far as I was using
 747 Debian on my personal laptop I thought it would be fine to install
 748 Debian and configure an LTSP server myself.  Surprised, I discovered
 749 that the Debian project also supported a kind of Edubuntu equivalent,
 750 and after having some pain I obtained a Debian Edu network up and
 751 running.  I just loved it.</p>
 752
 753 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 754 Edu?</strong></p>
 755
 756 <p>I found a main advantage in that, once you know "the tips and
 757 tricks", a new installation just works out of the box. It's the most
 758 complete alternative I've found to create an LTSP network. All the
 759 other distributions seems to be made of plastic, Debian Edu seems to
 760 be made of steel.</p>
 761
 762 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 763 Edu?</strong></p>
 764
 765 <p>I found two main disadvantages.</p>
 766
 767 <p>I'm not an expert but I've got notions and I had to spent a considerable
 768 amount of time trying to bring up a standard network topology. I'm quite
 769 stubborn and I just worked until I did but I'm sure many people with few
 770 resources (not big schools, but academies for example) would have switched
 771 or dropped.</p>
 772
 773 <p>It's amazing how such a complex system like Debian Edu has achieved
 774 this out-of-the-box state. Even though tweaking without breaking gets
 775 more difficult, as more factors have to be considered. This can
 776 discourage many people too.</p>
 777
 778 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 779
 780 <p>I use Debian, Firefox, Okular, Inkscape, LibreOffice and
 781 Virtualbox.</p>
 782
 783
 784 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 785 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 786
 787 <p>I don't think there is a need for a particular strategy. The free
 788 attribute in both "freedom" and "no price" meanings is what will
 789 really bring free software to schools. In my experience I can think of
 790 the <a href="http://www.r-project.org/">"R" statistical language</a>; a
 791 few years a ago was an extremely nerd tool for university people.
 792 Today it's being increasingly used to teach statistics at many
 793 different level of studies.  I believe free and open software will
 794 increasingly gain popularity, but I'm sure schools will be one of the
 795 first scenarios where this will happen.</p>
 796
 797       </div>
 798       <div class="tags">
 799
 800
 801         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
 802
 803
 804       </div>
 805     </div>
 806     <div class="padding"></div>
 807
 808     <div class="entry">
 809       <div class="title">
 810         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Public_Trusted_Timestamping_services_for_everyone.html">Public Trusted Timestamping services for everyone</a>
 811       </div>
 812       <div class="date">
 813         25th March 2014
 814       </div>
 815       <div class="body">
 816         <p>Did you ever need to store logs or other files in a way that would
 817 allow it to be used as evidence in court, and needed a way to
 818 demonstrate without reasonable doubt that the file had not been
 819 changed since it was created?  Or, did you ever need to document that
 820 a given document was received at some point in time, like some
 821 archived document or the answer to an exam, and not changed after it
 822 was received?  The problem in these settings is to remove the need to
 823 trust yourself and your computers, while still being able to prove
 824 that a file is the same as it was at some given time in the past.</p>
 825
 826 <p>A solution to these problems is to have a trusted third party
 827 "stamp" the document and verify that at some given time the document
 828 looked a given way.  Such
 829 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notarius">notarius</a> service
 830 have been around for thousands of years, and its digital equivalent is
 831 called a
 832 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping">trusted
 833 timestamping service</a>.  <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">The Internet
 834 Engineering Task Force</a> standardised how such service could work a
 835 few years ago as <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3161">RFC
 836 3161</a>.  The mechanism is simple.  Create a hash of the file in
 837 question, send it to a trusted third party which add a time stamp to
 838 the hash and sign the result with its private key, and send back the
 839 signed hash + timestamp.  Both email, FTP and HTTP can be used to
 840 request such signature, depending on what is provided by the service
 841 used. Anyone with the document and the signature can then verify that
 842 the document matches the signature by creating their own hash and
 843 checking the signature using the trusted third party public key.
 844 There are several commercial services around providing such
 845 timestamping.  A quick search for
 846 "<a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rfc+3161+service">rfc 3161
 847 service</a>" pointed me to at least
 848 <a href="https://www.digistamp.com/technical/how-a-digital-time-stamp-works/">DigiStamp</a>,
 849 <a href="http://www.quovadisglobal.co.uk/CertificateServices/SigningServices/TimeStamp.aspx">Quo
 850 Vadis</a>,
 851 <a href="https://www.globalsign.com/timestamp-service/">Global Sign</a>
 852 and <a href="http://www.globaltrustfinder.com/TSADefault.aspx">Global
 853 Trust Finder</a>.  The system work as long as the private key of the
 854 trusted third party is not compromised.</p>
 855
 856 <p>But as far as I can tell, there are very few public trusted
 857 timestamp services available for everyone.  I've been looking for one
 858 for a while now. But yesterday I found one over at
 859 <a href="https://www.pki.dfn.de/zeitstempeldienst/">Deutches
 860 Forschungsnetz</a> mentioned in
 861 <a href="http://www.d-mueller.de/blog/dealing-with-trusted-timestamps-in-php-rfc-3161/">a
 862 blog by David Müller</a>.  I then found
 863 <a href="http://www.rz.uni-greifswald.de/support/dfn-pki-zertifikate/zeitstempeldienst.html">a
 864 good recipe on how to use the service</a> over at the University of
 865 Greifswald.</p>
 866
 867 <p><a href="http://www.openssl.org/">The OpenSSL library</a> contain
 868 both server and tools to use and set up your own signing service.  See
 869 the ts(1SSL), tsget(1SSL) manual pages for more details.  The
 870 following shell script demonstrate how to extract a signed timestamp
 871 for any file on the disk in a Debian environment:</p>
 872
 873 <p><blockquote><pre>
 874 #!/bin/sh
 875 set -e
 876 url="http://zeitstempel.dfn.de"
 877 caurl="https://pki.pca.dfn.de/global-services-ca/pub/cacert/chain.txt"
 878 reqfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsq)
 879 resfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsr)
 880 cafile=chain.txt
 881 if [ ! -f $cafile ] ; then
 882     wget -O $cafile "$caurl"
 883 fi
 884 openssl ts -query -data "$1" -cert | tee "$reqfile" \
 885     | /usr/lib/ssl/misc/tsget -h "$url" -o "$resfile"
 886 openssl ts -reply -in "$resfile" -text 1>&2
 887 openssl ts -verify -data "$1" -in "$resfile" -CAfile "$cafile" 1>&2
 888 base64 < "$resfile"
 889 rm "$reqfile" "$resfile"
 890 </pre></blockquote></p>
 891
 892 <p>The argument to the script is the file to timestamp, and the output
 893 is a base64 encoded version of the signature to STDOUT and details
 894 about the signature to STDERR.  Note that due to
 895 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=742553">a bug
 896 in the tsget script</a>, you might need to modify the included script
 897 and remove the last line.  Or just write your own HTTP uploader using
 898 curl. :) Now you too can prove and verify that files have not been
 899 changed.</p>
 900
 901 <p>But the Internet need more public trusted timestamp services.
 902 Perhaps something for <a href="http://www.uninett.no/">Uninett</a> or
 903 my work place the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
 904 to set up?</p>
 905
 906       </div>
 907       <div class="tags">
 908
 909
 910         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 911
 912
 913       </div>
 914     </div>
 915     <div class="padding"></div>
 916
 917     <div class="entry">
 918       <div class="title">
 919         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Video_DVD_reader_library___python_dvdvideo___nice_free_software.html">Video DVD reader library / python-dvdvideo - nice free software</a>
 920       </div>
 921       <div class="date">
 922         21st March 2014
 923       </div>
 924       <div class="body">
 925         <p>Keeping your DVD collection safe from scratches and curious
 926 children fingers while still having it available when you want to see a
 927 movie is not straight forward.  My preferred method at the moment is
 928 to store a full copy of the ISO on a hard drive, and use VLC, Popcorn
 929 Hour or other useful players to view the resulting file.  This way the
 930 subtitles and bonus material are still available and using the ISO is
 931 just like inserting the original DVD record in the DVD player.</p>
 932
 933 <p>Earlier I used dd for taking security copies, but it do not handle
 934 DVDs giving read errors (which are quite a few of them).  I've also
 935 tried using
 936 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">dvdbackup
 937 and genisoimage</a>, but these days I use the marvellous python library
 938 and program
 939 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">python-dvdvideo</a>
 940 written by Bastian Blank.  It is
 941 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/python-dvdvideo.html">in Debian
 942 already</a> and the binary package name is python3-dvdvideo. Instead
 943 of trying to read every block from the DVD, it parses the file
 944 structure and figure out which block on the DVD is actually in used,
 945 and only read those blocks from the DVD.  This work surprisingly well,
 946 and I have been able to almost backup my entire DVD collection using
 947 this method.</p>
 948
 949 <p>So far, python-dvdvideo have failed on between 10 and
 950 20 DVDs, which is a small fraction of my collection.  The most common
 951 problem is
 952 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=720831">DVDs
 953 using UTF-16 instead of UTF-8 characters</a>, which according to
 954 Bastian is against the DVD specification (and seem to cause some
 955 players to fail too).  A rarer problem is what seem to be inconsistent
 956 DVD structures, as the python library
 957 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=723079">claim
 958 there is a overlap between objects</a>.  An equally rare problem claim
 959 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=741878">some
 960 value is out of range</a>.  No idea what is going on there.  I wish I
 961 knew enough about the DVD format to fix these, to ensure my movie
 962 collection will stay with me in the future.</p>
 963
 964 <p>So, if you need to keep your DVDs safe, back them up using
 965 python-dvdvideo. :)</p>
 966
 967       </div>
 968       <div class="tags">
 969
 970
 971         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 972
 973
 974       </div>
 975     </div>
 976     <div class="padding"></div>
 977
 978     <div class="entry">
 979       <div class="title">
 980         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
 981       </div>
 982       <div class="date">
 983         14th March 2014
 984       </div>
 985       <div class="body">
 986         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
 987 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
 988 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
 989 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
 990 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
 991 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
 992 release (0.2).</p>
 993
 994 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
 995 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
 996 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
 997 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
 998 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
 999 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
1000 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
1001 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
1002 and build using
1003 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
1004 with a user with sudo access to become root:
1005
1006 <pre>
1007 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1008   freedom-maker
1009 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1010   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1011   u-boot-tools
1012 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1013 </pre>
1014
1015 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1016 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1017 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
1018 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
1019 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
1020 kpartx call.</p>
1021
1022 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1023 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1024 the preseed values:</p>
1025
1026 <pre>
1027 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1028 </pre>
1029
1030 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
1031 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
1032 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
1033 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
1034 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
1035 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
1036
1037 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1038 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1039 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1040 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1041 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1042 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1043
1044       </div>
1045       <div class="tags">
1046
1047
1048         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1049
1050
1051       </div>
1052     </div>
1053     <div class="padding"></div>
1054
1055     <div class="entry">
1056       <div class="title">
1057         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_add_extra_storage_servers_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">How to add extra storage servers in Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
1058       </div>
1059       <div class="date">
1060         12th March 2014
1061       </div>
1062       <div class="body">
1063         <p>On larger sites, it is useful to use a dedicated storage server for
1064 storing user home directories and data.  The design for handling this
1065 in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, is
1066 to update the automount rules in LDAP and let the automount daemon on
1067 the clients take care of the rest.  I was reminded about the need to
1068 document this better when one of the customers of
1069 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a>, where I am
1070 on the board of directors, asked about how to do this.  The steps to
1071 get this working are the following:</p>
1072
1073 <p><ol>
1074
1075 <li>Add new storage server in DNS.  I use nas-server.intern as the
1076 example host here.</li>
1077
1078 <li>Add automoun LDAP information about this server in LDAP, to allow
1079 all clients to automatically mount it on reqeust.</li>
1080
1081 <li>Add the relevant entries in tjener.intern:/etc/fstab, because
1082 tjener.intern do not use automount to avoid mounting loops.</li>
1083
1084 </ol></p>
1085
1086 <p>DNS entries are added in GOsa², and not described here.  Follow the
1087 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/GettingStarted">instructions
1088 in the manual</a> (Machine Management with GOsa² in section Getting
1089 started).</p>
1090
1091 <p>Ensure that the NFS export points on the server are exported to the
1092 relevant subnets or machines:</p>
1093
1094 <p><blockquote><pre>
1095 root@tjener:~# showmount -e nas-server
1096 Export list for nas-server:
1097 /storage         10.0.0.0/8
1098 root@tjener:~#
1099 </pre></blockquote></p>
1100
1101 <p>Here everything on the backbone network is granted access to the
1102 /storage export.  With NFSv3 it is slightly better to limit it to
1103 netgroup membership or single IP addresses to have some limits on the
1104 NFS access.</p>
1105
1106 <p>The next step is to update LDAP.  This can not be done using GOsa²,
1107 because it lack a module for automount.  Instead, use ldapvi and add
1108 the required LDAP objects using an editor.</p>
1109
1110 <p><blockquote><pre>
1111 ldapvi --ldap-conf -ZD '(cn=admin)' -b ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
1112 </pre></blockquote></p>
1113
1114 <p>When the editor show up, add the following LDAP objects at the
1115 bottom of the document.  The "/&" part in the last LDAP object is a
1116 wild card matching everything the nas-server exports, removing the
1117 need to list individual mount points in LDAP.</p>
1118
1119 <p><blockquote><pre>
1120 add cn=nas-server,ou=auto.skole,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
1121 objectClass: automount
1122 cn: nas-server
1123 automountInformation: -fstype=autofs --timeout=60 ldap:ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
1124
1125 add ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
1126 objectClass: top
1127 objectClass: automountMap
1128 ou: auto.nas-server
1129
1130 add cn=/,ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
1131 objectClass: automount
1132 cn: /
1133 automountInformation: -fstype=nfs,tcp,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,rw,intr,hard,nodev,nosuid,noatime nas-server.intern:/&
1134 </pre></blockquote></p>
1135
1136 <p>The last step to remember is to mount the relevant mount points in
1137 tjener.intern by adding them to /etc/fstab, creating the mount
1138 directories using mkdir and running "mount -a" to mount them.</p>
1139
1140 <p>When this is done, your users should be able to access the files on
1141 the storage server directly by just visiting the
1142 /tjener/nas-server/storage/ directory using any application on any
1143 workstation, LTSP client or LTSP server.</p>
1144
1145       </div>
1146       <div class="tags">
1147
1148
1149         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1150
1151
1152       </div>
1153     </div>
1154     <div class="padding"></div>
1155
1156     <div class="entry">
1157       <div class="title">
1158         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
1159       </div>
1160       <div class="date">
1161         22nd February 2014
1162       </div>
1163       <div class="body">
1164         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
1165 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
1166 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
1167 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
1168 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
1169 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
1170 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
1171 proper home since then.</p>
1172
1173 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
1174 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
1175 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
1176 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
1177 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
1178
1179 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
1180 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
1181 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
1182 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
1183 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
1184 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
1185 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
1186 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
1187 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
1188
1189       </div>
1190       <div class="tags">
1191
1192
1193         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>.
1194
1195
1196       </div>
1197     </div>
1198     <div class="padding"></div>
1199
1200     <div class="entry">
1201       <div class="title">
1202         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
1203       </div>
1204       <div class="date">
1205          3rd February 2014
1206       </div>
1207       <div class="body">
1208         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
1209 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
1210 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
1211 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
1212 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
1213 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
1214 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
1215 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
1216 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
1217
1218 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
1219 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
1220 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
1221 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
1222 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
1223 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
1224
1225 <p><blockquote><pre>
1226 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
1227 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
1228 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
1229 dhclient /dev/eth0
1230 </pre></blockquote></p>
1231
1232 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
1233 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
1234 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
1235
1236 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
1237 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
1238 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
1239 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
1240 side.</p>
1241
1242 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
1243 stuff:</p>
1244
1245 <p><blockquote><pre>
1246 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1247 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
1248 EOF
1249 apt-get update
1250 apt-get dist-upgrade
1251 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
1252     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
1253 update-alternatives --config runsystem
1254 </pre></blockquote></p>
1255
1256 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
1257 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
1258 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
1259 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
1260 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
1261 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
1262 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
1263 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
1264 ssh instead.
1265
1266 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
1267 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
1268 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
1269 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
1270 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
1271 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
1272
1273 <p><blockquote><pre>
1274 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1275 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
1276 EOF
1277 </pre></blockquote></p>
1278
1279 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
1280 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
1281 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
1282 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
1283
1284 <p><blockquote><pre>
1285 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
1286 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
1287 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
1288 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
1289 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
1290 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
1291 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
1292 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
1293 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
1294 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
1295 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
1296 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
1297 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
1298 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
1299 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
1300 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
1301 #
1302 </pre></blockquote></p>
1303
1304 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
1305 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
1306 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
1307 command line stuff.<p>
1308
1309       </div>
1310       <div class="tags">
1311
1312
1313         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>.
1314
1315
1316       </div>
1317     </div>
1318     <div class="padding"></div>
1319
1320     <div class="entry">
1321       <div class="title">
1322         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_fist_full_of_non_anonymous_Bitcoins.html">A fist full of non-anonymous Bitcoins</a>
1323       </div>
1324       <div class="date">
1325         29th January 2014
1326       </div>
1327       <div class="body">
1328         <p>Bitcoin is a incredible use of peer to peer communication and
1329 encryption, allowing direct and immediate money transfer without any
1330 central control.  It is sometimes claimed to be ideal for illegal
1331 activity, which I believe is quite a long way from the truth.  At least
1332 I would not conduct illegal money transfers using a system where the
1333 details of every transaction are kept forever.  This point is
1334 investigated in
1335 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">USENIX ;login:</a>
1336 from December 2013, in the article
1337 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/03_meiklejohn-online.pdf">A
1338 Fistful of Bitcoins - Characterizing Payments Among Men with No
1339 Names</a>" by Sarah Meiklejohn, Marjori Pomarole,Grant Jordan, Kirill
1340 Levchenko, Damon McCoy, Geoffrey M. Voelker, and Stefan Savage.  They
1341 analyse the transaction log in the Bitcoin system, using it to find
1342 addresses belong to individuals and organisations and follow the flow
1343 of money from both Bitcoin theft and trades on Silk Road to where the
1344 money end up.  This is how they wrap up their article:</p>
1345
1346 <p><blockquote>
1347 <p>"To demonstrate the usefulness of this type of analysis, we turned
1348 our attention to criminal activity. In the Bitcoin economy, criminal
1349 activity can appear in a number of forms, such as dealing drugs on
1350 Silk Road or simply stealing someone else’s bitcoins. We followed the
1351 flow of bitcoins out of Silk Road (in particular, from one notorious
1352 address) and from a number of highly publicized thefts to see whether
1353 we could track the bitcoins to known services. Although some of the
1354 thieves attempted to use sophisticated mixing techniques (or possibly
1355 mix services) to obscure the flow of bitcoins, for the most part
1356 tracking the bitcoins was quite straightforward, and we ultimately saw
1357 large quantities of bitcoins flow to a variety of exchanges directly
1358 from the point of theft (or the withdrawal from Silk Road).</p>
1359
1360 <p>As acknowledged above, following stolen bitcoins to the point at
1361 which they are deposited into an exchange does not in itself identify
1362 the thief; however, it does enable further de-anonymization in the
1363 case in which certain agencies can determine (through, for example,
1364 subpoena power) the real-world owner of the account into which the
1365 stolen bitcoins were deposited.  Because such exchanges seem to serve
1366 as chokepoints into and out of the Bitcoin economy (i.e., there are
1367 few alternative ways to cash out), we conclude that using Bitcoin for
1368 money laundering or other illicit purposes does not (at least at
1369 present) seem to be particularly attractive."</p>
1370 </blockquote><p>
1371
1372 <p>These researches are not the first to analyse the Bitcoin
1373 transaction log.  The 2011 paper
1374 "<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.4524">An Analysis of Anonymity in
1375 the Bitcoin System</A>" by Fergal Reid and Martin Harrigan is
1376 summarized like this:</p>
1377
1378 <p><blockquote>
1379 "Anonymity in Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic currency system, is a
1380 complicated issue. Within the system, users are identified by
1381 public-keys only. An attacker wishing to de-anonymize its users will
1382 attempt to construct the one-to-many mapping between users and
1383 public-keys and associate information external to the system with the
1384 users. Bitcoin tries to prevent this attack by storing the mapping of
1385 a user to his or her public-keys on that user's node only and by
1386 allowing each user to generate as many public-keys as required. In
1387 this chapter we consider the topological structure of two networks
1388 derived from Bitcoin's public transaction history. We show that the
1389 two networks have a non-trivial topological structure, provide
1390 complementary views of the Bitcoin system and have implications for
1391 anonymity. We combine these structures with external information and
1392 techniques such as context discovery and flow analysis to investigate
1393 an alleged theft of Bitcoins, which, at the time of the theft, had a
1394 market value of approximately half a million U.S. dollars."
1395 </blockquote></p>
1396
1397 <p>I hope these references can help kill the urban myth that Bitcoin
1398 is anonymous.  It isn't really a good fit for illegal activites.  Use
1399 cash if you need to stay anonymous, at least until regular DNA
1400 sampling of notes and coins become the norm. :)</p>
1401
1402 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1403 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1404 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1405
1406       </div>
1407       <div class="tags">
1408
1409
1410         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>.
1411
1412
1413       </div>
1414     </div>
1415     <div class="padding"></div>
1416
1417     <div class="entry">
1418       <div class="title">
1419         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
1420       </div>
1421       <div class="date">
1422         14th January 2014
1423       </div>
1424       <div class="body">
1425         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
1426 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
1427 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
1428 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
1429 the source.  The company behind it provide
1430 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
1431 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
1432 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
1433 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
1434 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
1435 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
1436 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
1437 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
1438 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
1439 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
1440 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
1441 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
1442 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
1443 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
1444 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
1445 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
1446 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
1447 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
1448 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
1449
1450 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
1451
1452 <ul>
1453
1454   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
1455   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
1456   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
1457
1458 </ul>
1459
1460 <p>You can
1461 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1462 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1463 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1464 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1465 include a test suite check.</p>
1466
1467       </div>
1468       <div class="tags">
1469
1470
1471         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1472
1473
1474       </div>
1475     </div>
1476     <div class="padding"></div>
1477
1478     <div class="entry">
1479       <div class="title">
1480         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Dominik_George.html">Debian Edu interview: Dominik George</a>
1481       </div>
1482       <div class="date">
1483         25th December 2013
1484       </div>
1485       <div class="body">
1486         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1487 project</a> consist of both newcomers and old timers, and this time I
1488 was able to get an interview with a newcomer in the project who showed
1489 up on the IRC channel a few weeks ago to let us know about his
1490 successful installation of Debian Edu Wheezy in his School.  Say hello
1491 to <a href="https://www.ohloh.net/accounts/Natureshadow">Dominik
1492 George</a>.</p>
1493
1494 <!-- http://www.dominik-george.de/images/foto.jpg -->
1495
1496 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1497
1498 <p>I am a 23 year-old student from Germany who has spent half of his
1499 life with open source. In "real life", I am, as already mentioned, a
1500 student in the fields of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering,
1501 Information Technologies and Anglistics. Due to my (only partially
1502 voluntary) huge engagement in the open source world, these things are
1503 a bit vacant right now however.</p>
1504
1505 <p>I also have been working as a project teacher at a Gymasnium
1506 (public school) for various years now. I took up that work some time
1507 around 2005 when still attending that school myself and have continued
1508 it until today. I also had been running the (kind of very advanced)
1509 network of that school together with a team of very interested and
1510 talented students in the age of 11 to 15 years, who took the chance to
1511 learn a lot about open source and networking before I left the school
1512 to help building another school's informational education concept from
1513 scratch.</p>
1514
1515 <p>That said, one might see me as a kind of "glue" between school kids
1516 and the elderly of teachers as well as between the open source
1517 ecosystem and the (even more complex) educational ecosystem.</p>
1518
1519 <p>When I am not busy with open source or education, I like Geocaching
1520 and cycling.</p>
1521
1522 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
1523 project?</strong></p>
1524
1525 <p>I think that happened some time around 2009 when I first attended
1526 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">FrOSCon</a> and visited the project
1527 booth. I think I wasn't too interested back then because I used to
1528 have an attitude of disliking software that does too much stuff on its
1529 own. Maybe I was too inexperienced to realise the upsides of an
1530 "out-of-the-box" solution ;).</p>
1531
1532 <p>The first time I actively talked to Skolelinux people was at
1533 <a href="http://www.openrheinruhr.de">OpenRheinRuhr</a> 2011 when the
1534 BiscuIT project, a home-grewn software used by my school for various
1535 really cool things from timetables and class contact lists to lunch
1536 ordering, student ID card printing and project elections first got to
1537 a stage where it could have been published. I asked the Skolelinux
1538 guys running the booth if the project were interested in it and gave a
1539 small demonstration, but there wasn't any real feedback and the guys
1540 seemed rather uninterested.</p>
1541
1542 <p>After I left the school where I developed the software, it got
1543 mostly lost, but I am now reimplementing it for my new school. I have
1544 reusability and compatibility in mind, and I hop there will be a new
1545 basis for contributing it to the Skolelinux project ;)!</p>
1546
1547 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1548 Edu?</strong></p>
1549
1550 <p>The most important advantage seems to be that it "just
1551 works". After overcoming some minor (but still very annoying) glitches
1552 in the installer, I got a fully functional, working school network,
1553 without the month-long hassle I experienced when setting all that up
1554 from scratch in earlier years. And above that, it rocked - I didn't
1555 have any real hardware at hand, because the school was just founded
1556 and has no money whatsoever, so I installed a combined server (main
1557 server, terminal services and workstation) in a VM on my personal
1558 notebook, bridging the LTSP network interface to the ethernet port,
1559 and then PXE-booted the Windows notebooks that were lying around from
1560 it. I could use 8 clients without any performance issues, by using a
1561 tiny little VM on a tiny little notebook. I think that's enough to say
1562 that it rocks!</p>
1563
1564 <p>Secondly, there are marketing reasons. Life's bad, and so no
1565 politician will ever permit a setup described as "Debian, an universal
1566 operating system, with some really cool educational tools" while they
1567 will be jsut fine with "Skolelinux, a single-purpose solution for your
1568 school network", even if both turn out to be the very same thing (yes,
1569 this is unfair towards the Skolelinux project, and must not be taken
1570 too seriously - you get the idea, anyway).</p>
1571
1572 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1573 Edu?</strong></p>
1574
1575 <p>I have not been involved with Skolelinux long enough to really
1576 answer this question in a fair way. Thus, please allow me to put it in
1577 other words: "What do you expect from Skolelinux to keep liking it?" I
1578 can list a few points about that:</p>
1579
1580 <ul>
1581
1582  <li>always strive to get all things integrated into Debian upstream
1583  <li>be open to discussion about changes and the like, even with newcomers
1584  <li>be helpful at being helpful ;)
1585
1586 </ul>
1587
1588 <p>I'm really sorry I cannot say much more about that :(!</p>
1589
1590 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1591
1592 <p>First of all, all software I use is free and open. I have abandoned
1593 all non-free software (except for firmware on my darned phone) this
1594 year.</p>
1595
1596 <p>I run Debian GNU/Linux on all PC systems I use. On that, I mostly
1597 run text tools. I use
1598 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm">mksh</a> as shell,
1599 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/jupp.htm">jupp</a> as very advanced
1600 text editor (I even got the developer to help me write a script/macro
1601 based full-featured student management software with the two),
1602 <a href="http://mcabber.com/">mcabber</a> for XMPP and
1603 <a href="http://www.irssi.org/">irssi</a> for IRC. For that overly
1604 coloured world called the WWW, I use
1605 <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">Iceweasel
1606 (Firefox)</a>. Oh, and <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a> for
1607 e-mail.</p>
1608
1609 <p>However, while I am personally aware of the fact that text tools
1610 are more efficient and powerful than anything else, I also use (or at
1611 least operate) some tools that are suitable to bring open source to
1612 kids. One of these things is <a href="http://jappix.org/">Jappix</a>,
1613 which I already introduced to some kids even before they got aware of
1614 Facebook, making them see for themselves that they do not need
1615 Facebook now ;).</p>
1616
1617 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1618 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1619
1620 <p>Well, that's a two-sided thing. One side is what I believe, and one
1621 side is what I have experienced.</p>
1622
1623 <p>I believe that the right strategy is showing them the benefits. But
1624 that won't work out as long as the acceptance of free alternatives
1625 grows globally. What I mean is that if all the kids are almost forced
1626 to use Windows, Facebook, Skype, you name it at home, they will not
1627 see why they would want to use alternatives at school. I have seen
1628 students take seat in front of a fully-functional, modern Debian
1629 desktop that could do anything their Windows at home could do, and
1630 they jsut refused to use it because "Linux sucks". It is something
1631 that makes the council of our city spend around 600000 € to buy
1632 software - not including hardware, mind you - for operating school
1633 networks, and for installing a system that, as has been proved, does
1634 not work. For those of you readers who are good at maths, have you
1635 already found out how many lives could have been saved with that money
1636 if we had instead used it to bring education to parts of the world
1637 that need it? I have, and found it to be nothing less dramatic than
1638 plain criminal.</p>
1639
1640 <p>That said, the only feasible way appears to be the bottom up
1641 method. We have to bring free software to kids and parents. I have
1642 founded an association named
1643 <a href="https://www.teckids.org">Teckids</a> here in Germany that does
1644 just that. We organise several events for kids and adolescents in the
1645 area of free and open source software, for example the
1646 <a href="http://kids.froscon.org">FrogLabs</a>, which share staff with
1647 Teckids and are the youth programme of
1648 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">the Free and Open Source Software
1649 Conference (FrOSCon)</a>. We do a lot more than most other conferences
1650 - this year, we first offered the FrogLabs as a holiday camp for kids
1651 aged 10 to 16. It was a huge success, with approx. 30 kids taking part
1652 and learning with and about free software through a whole weekend. All
1653 of us had a lot of fun, and the results were really exciting.</p>
1654
1655 <p>Apart from that, we are preparing a campaign that is supposed to bring
1656 the message of free alternatives to stuff kids use every day to them and
1657 their parents, e.g. the use of Jabber / Jappix instead of Facebook and
1658 Skype. To make that possible, we are planning to get together a team of
1659 clever kids who understand very well what their peers need and can bring
1660 it across to them. So we will have a peer-driven network of adolescents
1661 who teach each other and collect feedback from the community of minors.
1662 We then take that feedback and our own experience to work closely with
1663 open source projects, such as Skolelinux or Jappix, at improving their
1664 software in a way that makes it more and more attractive for the target
1665 group. At least I hope that we will have good cooperation with
1666 Skolelinux in the future ;)!</p>
1667
1668 <p>So in conclusion, what I believe is that, if it weren't for the world
1669 being so bad, it should be very clear to the political decision makers
1670 that the only way to go nowadays is free software for various reasons,
1671 but I have learnt that the only way that seems to work is bottom up.</p>
1672
1673 <!--
1674
1675 >  * Who should be interviewed with this questions in the future?
1676
1677 That's probably the hardest question of them all, as I do not know the
1678 community. However, I would be willing to do the following:
1679
1680  <li>Run an interview with a German headteacher who is very open to
1681    free software, and also prefers it, but cannot really use it because
1682    of the decision makers above;
1683  <li>Run interviews with some kids, both with and without previous
1684    knowledge about free software
1685
1686 If that is wanted, just let me know ;).
1687
1688 -->
1689
1690       </div>
1691       <div class="tags">
1692
1693
1694         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1695
1696
1697       </div>
1698     </div>
1699     <div class="padding"></div>
1700
1701     <div class="entry">
1702       <div class="title">
1703         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Klaus_Knopper.html">Debian Edu interview: Klaus Knopper</a>
1704       </div>
1705       <div class="date">
1706          6th December 2013
1707       </div>
1708       <div class="body">
1709         <p>It has been a while since I managed to publish the last interview,
1710 but the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
1711 Skolelinux</a> community is still going strong, and yesterday we even
1712 had a new school administrator show up on
1713 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a> to share
1714 his success story with installing Debian Edu at their school.  This
1715 time I have been able to get some helpful comments from the creator of
1716 Knoppix, Klaus Knopper, who was involved in a Skolelinux project in
1717 Germany a few years ago.</p>
1718
1719 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1720
1721 <p>I am Klaus Knopper.  I have a master degree in electrical
1722 engineering, and is currently professor in information management at
1723 the university of applied sciences Kaiserslautern / Germany and
1724 freelance Open Source software developer and consultant.</p>
1725
1726 <p>All of this is pretty much of the work I spend my days with. Apart
1727 from teaching, I'm also conducting some more or less experimental
1728 projects like the <a href="http://www.knoppix.org">Knoppix GNU/Linux live
1729 system</a> (Debian-based like Skolelinux),
1730 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html">ADRIANE</a>
1731 (a blind-friendly talking desktop system) and
1732 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/linbo/index-en.html">LINBO</a>
1733 (Linux-based network boot console, a fast remote install and repair
1734 system supporting various operating systems).</p>
1735
1736 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
1737 project?</strong></p>
1738
1739 <p>The credit for this have to go to Kurt Gramlich, who is the German
1740 coordinator for Skolelinux.  We were looking for an all-in-one open
1741 source community-supported distribution for schools, and Kurt
1742 introduced us to Skolelinux for this purpose.</p>
1743
1744 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1745 Edu?</strong></p>
1746
1747 <ul>
1748   <li>Quick installation,</li>
1749   <li>works (almost) out of the box,</li>
1750   <li>contains many useful software packages for teaching and learning,</li>
1751   <li>is a purely community-based distro and not controlled by a
1752     single company,</li>
1753   <li>has a large number of supporters and teachers who share their
1754     experience and problem solutions.</li>
1755 </ul>
1756
1757 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1758 Edu?</strong></p>
1759
1760 <ul>
1761   <li>Skolelinux is - as we had to learn - not easily upgradable to
1762   the next version.  Opposed to its genuine Debian base, upgrading to
1763   a new version means a full new installation from scratch to get it
1764   working again reliably.
1765
1766   <li>Skolelinux is based on Debian/stable, and therefore always a
1767   little outdated in terms of program versions compared to Edubuntu or
1768   similar educational Linux distros, which rather use Debian/testing
1769   as their base.
1770
1771   <li>Skolelinux has some very self-opinionated and stubborn default
1772   configuration which in my opinion adds unnecessary complexity and is
1773   not always suitable for a schools needs, the preset network
1774   configuration is actually a core definition feature of Skolelinux
1775   and not easy to change, so schools sometimes have to change their
1776   network configuration to make it "Skolelinux-compatible".
1777
1778   <li>Some proposed extensions, which were made available as
1779   contribution, like secure examination mode and lecture material
1780   distribution and collection, were not accepted into the mainline
1781   Skolelinux development and are now not easy to maintain in the
1782   future because of Skolelinux somewhat undeterministic update
1783   schemes.</li>
1784
1785   <li>Skolelinux has only a very tiny number of base developers
1786   compared to Debian.</li>
1787
1788 </ul>
1789
1790 <p>For these reasons and experience from our project, I would now
1791 rather consider using plain Debian for schools next time, until
1792 Skolelinux is more closely integrated into Debian and becomes
1793 upgradeable without reinstallation.</p>
1794
1795 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1796
1797 <p>GNU/Linux with LXDE desktop, bash for interactive dialog and
1798 programming, texlive for documentation and correspondence,
1799 occasionally LibreOffice for document format conversion. Various
1800 programming languages for teaching.</p>
1801
1802 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1803 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1804
1805 <p>Strong arguments are</p>
1806
1807 <ul>
1808
1809   <li>Knowledge is free, and so should be methods and tools for
1810     teaching and learning.</li>
1811
1812   <li>Students can learn with and use the same software at school, at
1813     home, and at their working place without running into license or
1814     conversion problems.</li>
1815
1816   <li>Closed source or proprietary software hides knowledge rather
1817     than exposing it, and proprietary software vendors try to bind
1818     customers to certain products.  But teachers need to teach
1819     science, not products.</li>
1820
1821   <li>If you have everything you for daily work as open source, what
1822     would you need proprietary software for?</li>
1823
1824 </ul>
1825
1826       </div>
1827       <div class="tags">
1828
1829
1830         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1831
1832
1833       </div>
1834     </div>
1835     <div class="padding"></div>
1836
1837     <div class="entry">
1838       <div class="title">
1839         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnadsnett_for_alle__a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo__take_shape.html">Dugnadsnett for alle, a wireless community network in Oslo, take shape</a>
1840       </div>
1841       <div class="date">
1842         30th November 2013
1843       </div>
1844       <div class="body">
1845         <p>If you want the ability to electronically communicate directly with
1846 your neighbors and friends using a network controlled by your peers in
1847 stead of centrally controlled by a few corporations, or would like to
1848 experiment with interesting network technology, the
1849 <a href="http://www.dugnadsnett.no/">Dugnasnett for alle i Oslo</a>
1850 might be project for you.  39 mesh nodes are currently being planned,
1851 in the freshly started initiative from NUUG and Hackeriet to create a
1852 wireless community network.  The work is inspired by
1853 <a href="http://freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a>,
1854 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan
1855 Network</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roofnet">Roofnet</a>
1856 and other successful mesh networks around the globe.  Two days ago we
1857 held a workshop to try to get people started on setting up their own
1858 mesh node, and there we decided to create a new mailing list
1859 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/dugnadsnett">dugnadsnett
1860 (at) nuug.no</a> and IRC channel
1861 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#dugnadsnett.no">#dugnadsnett.no</a> to
1862 coordinate the work.  See also the NUUG blog post
1863 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/E_postliste_og_IRC_kanal_for_Dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">announcing
1864 the mailing list and IRC channel</a>.</p>
1865
1866       </div>
1867       <div class="tags">
1868
1869
1870         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
1871
1872
1873       </div>
1874     </div>
1875     <div class="padding"></div>
1876
1877     <div class="entry">
1878       <div class="title">
1879         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
1880       </div>
1881       <div class="date">
1882         24th November 2013
1883       </div>
1884       <div class="body">
1885         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
1886 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
1887 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
1888 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
1889 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
1890 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
1891 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
1892 is working on.  I checked the
1893 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
1894 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
1895 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
1896 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
1897 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
1898 These are the release notes:</p>
1899
1900 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
1901
1902 <ul>
1903
1904   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
1905    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
1906    up.</li>
1907
1908   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
1909
1910   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
1911    Matthias Klose.</li>
1912
1913   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
1914    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
1915
1916   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
1917    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
1918    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
1919
1920 </ul>
1921
1922 <p>You can
1923 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1924 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1925 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1926 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1927 include a testsuite check.</p>
1928
1929       </div>
1930       <div class="tags">
1931
1932
1933         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1934
1935
1936       </div>
1937     </div>
1938     <div class="padding"></div>
1939
1940     <div class="entry">
1941       <div class="title">
1942         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/All_drones_should_be_radio_marked_with_what_they_do_and_who_they_belong_to.html">All drones should be radio marked with what they do and who they belong to</a>
1943       </div>
1944       <div class="date">
1945         21st November 2013
1946       </div>
1947       <div class="body">
1948         <p>Drones, flying robots, are getting more and more popular.  The most
1949 know ones are the killer drones used by some government to murder
1950 people they do not like without giving them the chance of a fair
1951 trial, but the technology have many good uses too, from mapping and
1952 forest maintenance to photography and search and rescue.  I am sure it
1953 is just a question of time before "bad drones" are in the hands of
1954 private enterprises and not only state criminals but petty criminals
1955 too.  The drone technology is very useful and very dangerous.  To have
1956 some control over the use of drones, I agree with Daniel Suarez in his
1957 TED talk
1958 "<a href="https://archive.org/details/DanielSuarez_2013G">The kill
1959 decision shouldn't belong to a robot</a>", where he suggested this
1960 little gem to keep the good while limiting the bad use of drones:</p>
1961
1962 <blockquote>
1963
1964 <p>Each robot and drone should have a cryptographically signed
1965 I.D. burned in at the factory that can be used to track its movement
1966 through public spaces. We have license plates on cars, tail numbers on
1967 aircraft. This is no different. And every citizen should be able to
1968 download an app that shows the population of drones and autonomous
1969 vehicles moving through public spaces around them, both right now and
1970 historically. And civic leaders should deploy sensors and civic drones
1971 to detect rogue drones, and instead of sending killer drones of their
1972 own up to shoot them down, they should notify humans to their
1973 presence. And in certain very high-security areas, perhaps civic
1974 drones would snare them and drag them off to a bomb disposal facility.</p>
1975
1976 <p>But notice, this is more an immune system than a weapons system. It
1977 would allow us to avail ourselves of the use of autonomous vehicles
1978 and drones while still preserving our open, civil society.</p>
1979
1980 </blockquote>
1981
1982 <p>The key is that <em>every citizen</em> should be able to read the
1983 radio beacons sent from the drones in the area, to be able to check
1984 both the government and others use of drones.  For such control to be
1985 effective, everyone must be able to do it.  What should such beacon
1986 contain?  At least formal owner, purpose, contact information and GPS
1987 location.  Probably also the origin and target position of the current
1988 flight.  And perhaps some registration number to be able to look up
1989 the drone in a central database tracking their movement.  Robots
1990 should not have privacy.  It is people who need privacy.</p>
1991
1992       </div>
1993       <div class="tags">
1994
1995
1996         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1997
1998
1999       </div>
2000     </div>
2001     <div class="padding"></div>
2002
2003     <div class="entry">
2004       <div class="title">
2005         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo_.html">Lets make a wireless community network in Oslo!</a>
2006       </div>
2007       <div class="date">
2008         13th November 2013
2009       </div>
2010       <div class="body">
2011         <p>Today NUUG and Hackeriet announced
2012 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Bli_med___bygge_dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">our
2013 plans to join forces and create a wireless community network in
2014 Oslo</a>.  The workshop to help people get started will take place
2015 Thursday 2013-11-28, but we already are collecting the geolocation of
2016 people joining forces to make this happen.  We have
2017 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/oslo-nodes.geojson">9
2018 locations plotted on the map</a>, but we will need more before we have
2019 a connected mesh spread across Oslo.  If this sound interesting to
2020 you, please join us at the workshop.  If you are too impatient to wait
2021 15 days, please join us on the IRC channel
2022 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
2023 right away. :)</p>
2024
2025       </div>
2026       <div class="tags">
2027
2028
2029         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
2030
2031
2032       </div>
2033     </div>
2034     <div class="padding"></div>
2035
2036     <div class="entry">
2037       <div class="title">
2038         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Running_TP_Link_MR3040_as_a_batman_adv_mesh_node_using_openwrt.html">Running TP-Link MR3040 as a batman-adv mesh node using openwrt</a>
2039       </div>
2040       <div class="date">
2041         10th November 2013
2042       </div>
2043       <div class="body">
2044         <p>Continuing my research into mesh networking, I was recommended to
2045 use TP-Link 3040 and 3600 access points as mesh nodes, and the pair I
2046 bought arrived on Friday.  Here are my notes on how to set up the
2047 MR3040 as a mesh node using
2048 <a href="http://www.openwrt.org/">OpenWrt</a>.</p>
2049
2050 <p>I started by following the instructions on the OpenWRT wiki for
2051 <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3040">TL-MR3040</a>,
2052 and downloaded
2053 <a href="http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin">the
2054 recommended firmware image</a>
2055 (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) and
2056 uploaded it into the original web interface.  The flashing went fine,
2057 and the machine was available via telnet on the ethernet port.  After
2058 logging in and setting the root password, ssh was available and I
2059 could start to set it up as a batman-adv mesh node.</p>
2060
2061 <p>I started off by reading the instructions from
2062 <a href="http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php?title=Antoine's_Research">Wireless
2063 Africa</a>, which had quite a lot of useful information, but
2064 eventually I followed the recipe from the Open Mesh wiki for
2065 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Batman-adv-openwrt-config">using
2066 batman-adv on OpenWrt</a>.  A small snag was the fact that the
2067 <tt>opkg install kmod-batman-adv</tt> command did not work as it
2068 should.  The batman-adv kernel module would fail to load because its
2069 dependency crc16 was not already loaded.  I
2070 <a href="https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/14452">reported the bug</a> to
2071 the openwrt project and hope it will be fixed soon.  But the problem
2072 only seem to affect initial testing of batman-adv, as configuration
2073 seem to work when booting from scratch.</p>
2074
2075 <p>The setup is done using files in /etc/config/.  I did not bridge
2076 the Ethernet and mesh interfaces this time, to be able to hook up the
2077 box on my local network and log into it for configuration updates.
2078 The following files were changed and look like this after modifying
2079 them:</p>
2080
2081 <p><tt>/etc/config/network</tt></p>
2082
2083 <pre>
2084
2085 config interface 'loopback'
2086         option ifname 'lo'
2087         option proto 'static'
2088         option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
2089         option netmask '255.0.0.0'
2090
2091 config globals 'globals'
2092         option ula_prefix 'fdbf:4c12:3fed::/48'
2093
2094 config interface 'lan'
2095         option ifname 'eth0'
2096         option type 'bridge'
2097         option proto 'dhcp'
2098         option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
2099         option netmask '255.255.255.0'
2100         option hostname 'tl-mr3040'
2101         option ip6assign '60'
2102
2103 config interface 'mesh'
2104         option ifname 'adhoc0'
2105         option mtu '1528'
2106         option proto 'batadv'
2107         option mesh 'bat0'
2108 </pre>
2109
2110 <p><tt>/etc/config/wireless</tt></p>
2111 <pre>
2112
2113 config wifi-device 'radio0'
2114         option type 'mac80211'
2115         option channel '11'
2116         option hwmode '11ng'
2117         option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac'
2118         option htmode 'HT20'
2119         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-20'
2120         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-40'
2121         list ht_capab 'RX-STBC1'
2122         list ht_capab 'DSSS_CCK-40'
2123         option disabled '0'
2124
2125 config wifi-iface 'wmesh'
2126         option device 'radio0'
2127         option ifname 'adhoc0'
2128         option network 'mesh'
2129         option encryption 'none'
2130         option mode 'adhoc'
2131         option bssid '02:BA:00:00:00:01'
2132         option ssid 'meshfx@hackeriet'
2133 </pre>
2134 <p><tt>/etc/config/batman-adv</tt></p>
2135 <pre>
2136
2137 config 'mesh' 'bat0'
2138         option interfaces 'adhoc0'
2139         option 'aggregated_ogms'
2140         option 'ap_isolation'
2141         option 'bonding'
2142         option 'fragmentation'
2143         option 'gw_bandwidth'
2144         option 'gw_mode'
2145         option 'gw_sel_class'
2146         option 'log_level'
2147         option 'orig_interval'
2148         option 'vis_mode'
2149         option 'bridge_loop_avoidance'
2150         option 'distributed_arp_table'
2151         option 'network_coding'
2152         option 'hop_penalty'
2153
2154 # yet another batX instance
2155 # config 'mesh' 'bat5'
2156 #       option 'interfaces' 'second_mesh'
2157 </pre>
2158
2159 <p>The mesh node is now operational.  I have yet to test its range,
2160 but I hope it is good.  I have not yet tested the TP-Link 3600 box
2161 still wrapped up in plastic.</p>
2162
2163       </div>
2164       <div class="tags">
2165
2166
2167         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
2168
2169
2170       </div>
2171     </div>
2172     <div class="padding"></div>
2173
2174     <div class="entry">
2175       <div class="title">
2176         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
2177       </div>
2178       <div class="date">
2179          2nd November 2013
2180       </div>
2181       <div class="body">
2182         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
2183 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
2184 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
2185 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
2186 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
2187
2188 <p><pre>
2189 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
2190 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
2191 # Provides:          rsyslog
2192 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
2193 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
2194 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
2195 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
2196 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
2197 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
2198 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
2199 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
2200 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
2201 ### END INIT INFO
2202 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
2203 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
2204 </pre></p>
2205
2206 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
2207 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
2208 info/comments.</p>
2209
2210 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
2211 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
2212
2213 <p><pre>
2214 #!/bin/sh
2215
2216 # Define LSB log_* functions.
2217 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
2218 # and status_of_proc is working.
2219 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
2220
2221 #
2222 # Function that starts the daemon/service
2223
2224 #
2225 do_start()
2226 {
2227         # Return
2228         #   0 if daemon has been started
2229         #   1 if daemon was already running
2230         #   2 if daemon could not be started
2231         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
2232                 || return 1
2233         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
2234                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
2235                 || return 2
2236         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
2237         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
2238         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
2239 }
2240
2241 #
2242 # Function that stops the daemon/service
2243 #
2244 do_stop()
2245 {
2246         # Return
2247         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
2248         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
2249         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
2250         #   other if a failure occurred
2251         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2252         RETVAL="$?"
2253         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
2254         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
2255         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
2256         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
2257         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
2258         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
2259         # sleep for some time.
2260         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
2261         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
2262         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
2263         rm -f $PIDFILE
2264         return "$RETVAL"
2265 }
2266
2267 #
2268 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
2269 #
2270 do_reload() {
2271         #
2272         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
2273         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
2274         # then implement that here.
2275         #
2276         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2277         return 0
2278 }
2279
2280 SCRIPTNAME=$1
2281 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
2282 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
2283 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
2284     script="$1"
2285     shift
2286     . $script
2287 else
2288     exit 0
2289 fi
2290
2291 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
2292 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
2293
2294 # Exit if the package is not installed
2295 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
2296
2297 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
2298 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
2299
2300 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
2301 . /lib/init/vars.sh
2302
2303 case "$1" in
2304   start)
2305         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
2306         do_start
2307         case "$?" in
2308                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2309                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2310         esac
2311         ;;
2312   stop)
2313         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
2314         do_stop
2315         case "$?" in
2316                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2317                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2318         esac
2319         ;;
2320   status)
2321         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
2322         ;;
2323   #reload|force-reload)
2324         #
2325         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
2326         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
2327         #
2328         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
2329         #do_reload
2330         #log_end_msg $?
2331         #;;
2332   restart|force-reload)
2333         #
2334         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
2335         # 'force-reload' alias
2336         #
2337         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
2338         do_stop
2339         case "$?" in
2340           0|1)
2341                 do_start
2342                 case "$?" in
2343                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
2344                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
2345                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
2346                 esac
2347                 ;;
2348           *)
2349                 # Failed to stop
2350                 log_end_msg 1
2351                 ;;
2352         esac
2353         ;;
2354   *)
2355         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
2356         exit 3
2357         ;;
2358 esac
2359
2360 :
2361 </pre></p>
2362
2363 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
2364 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
2365 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
2366 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
2367
2368 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
2369 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
2370 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
2371 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
2372 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
2373
2374       </div>
2375       <div class="tags">
2376
2377
2378         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>.
2379
2380
2381       </div>
2382     </div>
2383     <div class="padding"></div>
2384
2385     <div class="entry">
2386       <div class="title">
2387         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
2388       </div>
2389       <div class="date">
2390          1st November 2013
2391       </div>
2392       <div class="body">
2393         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
2394 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
2395 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
2396 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
2397 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
2398 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
2399 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
2400 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
2401 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
2402 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
2403 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
2404 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
2405
2406 <p>The source is now available from
2407 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
2408
2409       </div>
2410       <div class="tags">
2411
2412
2413         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>.
2414
2415
2416       </div>
2417     </div>
2418     <div class="padding"></div>
2419
2420     <div class="entry">
2421       <div class="title">
2422         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
2423       </div>
2424       <div class="date">
2425         27th October 2013
2426       </div>
2427       <div class="body">
2428         <p>The
2429 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
2430 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
2431 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
2432 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
2433 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
2434 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
2435 of a plan to simplify the build system for
2436 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
2437 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
2438 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
2439 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
2440 Raspberry Pi.</p>
2441
2442 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
2443 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
2444 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
2445 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
2446 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
2447 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
2448 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
2449 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
2450 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
2451 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
2452 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
2453 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
2454 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
2455 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
2456 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
2457 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
2458 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
2459 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
2460 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
2461 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
2462 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
2463 available from
2464 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
2465 upstream project page</a>.</p>
2466
2467 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
2468 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
2469 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
2470 list:</p>
2471
2472 <p><pre>
2473 #!/bin/sh
2474 set -e # Exit on first error
2475 rootdir="$1"
2476 cd "$rootdir"
2477 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
2478 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
2479 EOF
2480 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
2481 # install a kernel somewhere too.
2482 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
2483     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2484 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2485 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
2486 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
2487 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
2488 </pre></p>
2489
2490 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
2491 to build the image:</p>
2492
2493 <pre>
2494 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
2495     --variant minbase \
2496     --arch armel \
2497     --distribution jessie \
2498     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
2499     --image test.img \
2500     --size 600M \
2501     --bootsize 64M \
2502     --boottype vfat \
2503     --log-level debug \
2504     --verbose \
2505     --no-kernel \
2506     --no-extlinux \
2507     --root-password raspberry \
2508     --hostname raspberrypi \
2509     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
2510     --customize `pwd`/customize \
2511     --package netbase \
2512     --package git-core \
2513     --package binutils \
2514     --package ca-certificates \
2515     --package wget \
2516     --package kmod
2517 </pre></p>
2518
2519 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
2520 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
2521 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
2522 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
2523 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
2524 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
2525 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
2526
2527 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
2528 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
2529 build dependency list.</p>
2530
2531 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
2532 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
2533 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
2534 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
2535
2536       </div>
2537       <div class="tags">
2538
2539
2540         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
2541
2542
2543       </div>
2544     </div>
2545     <div class="padding"></div>
2546
2547     <div class="entry">
2548       <div class="title">
2549         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node</a>
2550       </div>
2551       <div class="date">
2552         21st October 2013
2553       </div>
2554       <div class="body">
2555         <p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
2556 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
2557 batman-adv mesh technology</a>.  I want to gain some experience to see
2558 if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
2559 Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
2560 mesh network around the park where I live.  Batman-adv is a layer 2
2561 mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear
2562 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.</p>
2563
2564 <p>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
2565 around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv.  So
2566 instead, I started playing with a
2567 <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>, and tried to
2568 get it working as a mesh node.  My idea is to use it to create a mesh
2569 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
2570 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
2571 network.  This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
2572 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
2573 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh.  This in turn is useful for
2574 Android phones using <a href="http://servalproject.org/">the Serval
2575 Project</a> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
2576 phone and message each other for free.  The reason is that Android
2577 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
2578 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted.  But if
2579 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
2580 every client on the local network.</p>
2581
2582 <p>To get this working, I've created a debian package
2583 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node">meshfx-node</a>
2584 and a script
2585 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node">build-rpi-mesh-node</a>
2586 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image.  I'm using Debian Jessie (and
2587 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
2588 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
2589 image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now.  Also, as
2590 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
2591 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit.  I hope
2592 the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
2593 support.</p>
2594
2595 <p>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
2596 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:</p>
2597
2598 <p><pre>
2599 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
2600     https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
2601 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
2602 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
2603 %
2604 </pre></p>
2605
2606 <p>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
2607 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node.  At least it does for
2608 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
2609 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
2610 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">an
2611 earlier blog post about this mesh testing</a>.</p>
2612
2613 <p>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either.  I bought
2614 everything over the counter in shops nearby.  If I had ordered online
2615 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:</p>
2616
2617 <p><table>
2618
2619 <tr><th>Supplier</th><th>Model</th><th>NOK</th></tr>
2620 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi model B</td><td>349.90</td></tr>
2621 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi type B case</td><td>99.90</td></tr>
2622 <tr><td>Lefdal</td><td>Jensen Air:Link 25150</td><td>295.-</td></tr>
2623 <tr><td>Clas Ohlson</td><td>Kingston 16 GB SD card</td><td>199.-</td></tr>
2624 <tr><td>Total cost</td><td></td><td>943.80</td></tr>
2625
2626 </table></p>
2627
2628 <p>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
2629 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th
2630 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
2631 play-node I use to develop the image building script.  And some times
2632 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it.  I look forward
2633 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
2634 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)</p>
2635
2636       </div>
2637       <div class="tags">
2638
2639
2640         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
2641
2642
2643       </div>
2644     </div>
2645     <div class="padding"></div>
2646
2647     <div class="entry">
2648       <div class="title">
2649         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html">Perl library to control the Spykee robot moved to github</a>
2650       </div>
2651       <div class="date">
2652         19th October 2013
2653       </div>
2654       <div class="body">
2655         <p>Back in 2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
2656 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee">the Spykee robot</a>
2657 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
2658 web page.  Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
2659 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github.  If
2660 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
2661 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl">the
2662 libspykee-perl github repository</a>.</p>
2663
2664       </div>
2665       <div class="tags">
2666
2667
2668         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>.
2669
2670
2671       </div>
2672     </div>
2673     <div class="padding"></div>
2674
2675     <div class="entry">
2676       <div class="title">
2677         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
2678       </div>
2679       <div class="date">
2680         15th October 2013
2681       </div>
2682       <div class="body">
2683         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
2684 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
2685 these. :)</p>
2686
2687 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
2688 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
2689 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
2690 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
2691 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
2692 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
2693 hope you will to. :)</p>
2694
2695 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
2696 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
2697 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
2698 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
2699 donated.  Are you next?</p>
2700
2701 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
2702 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
2703 statement under the heading
2704 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
2705 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
2706 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
2707 too.</p>
2708
2709       </div>
2710       <div class="tags">
2711
2712
2713         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2714
2715
2716       </div>
2717     </div>
2718     <div class="padding"></div>
2719
2720     <div class="entry">
2721       <div class="title">
2722         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania</a>
2723       </div>
2724       <div class="date">
2725         11th October 2013
2726       </div>
2727       <div class="body">
2728         <p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
2729 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
2730 areas, depending on the radio technology used.  Normal wifi equipment
2731 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
2732 successful examples like
2733 <a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
2734 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
2735 (see
2736 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
2737 for a large list</a>) around the globe.  To give you an idea how it
2738 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
2739 can be seen from their
2740 <a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
2741 updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
2742 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
2743 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
2744 and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
2745
2746 <p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
2747 to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
2748 href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
2749 my recent involvement in
2750 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
2751 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
2752 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
2753 when possible, given that most communication between people are
2754 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
2755 communication patterns).  It also allow people to communicate without
2756 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
2757 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
2758 important over the years.</p>
2759
2760 <p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
2761 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
2762 <a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania.  They seem to
2763 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
2764 <a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
2765 Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
2766 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
2767 <a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>.  Unfortunately the wiki
2768 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
2769 reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
2770 the new project.  A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
2771 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks.  I
2772 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
2773 speakers about this talk (from
2774 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
2775
2776 <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
2777
2778 <p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
2779 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
2780 figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
2781 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
2782 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
2783 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
2784 batman-adv for now.  It sure help me to  know that the very cool
2785 <a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
2786 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
2787 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
2788 less industrialized communities.  Check out this cool video presenting
2789 that project (from
2790 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
2791
2792 <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
2793
2794 <p>According to the wikipedia page on
2795 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
2796 mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
2797 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
2798 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
2799 based community mesh networks.</p>
2800
2801 <p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
2802 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
2803 network.  One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
2804 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
2805 computer.  The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
2806 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up.  A
2807 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
2808 introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project.  These are
2809 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
2810
2811 <p><table>
2812 <tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
2813 <tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
2814 <tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
2815 <td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
2816 <td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
2817 </table></p>
2818
2819 <p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
2820 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers.  (See a nice post from
2821 VillageTelco about
2822 "<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
2823 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
2824 for details.)  When these settings are activated and you have some
2825 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
2826 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
2827 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
2828
2829 <p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
2830 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
2831 firmware supporting batman-adv.  If anyone know how to use that old
2832 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
2833
2834 <p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
2835 us on IRC, either channel
2836 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
2837 or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
2838 irc.freenode.net.</p>
2839
2840 <p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
2841 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
2842 and Innovation called
2843 <a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
2844 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
2845 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
2846 Grünerløkka in Oslo.  So mesh networks are also interesting for
2847 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
2848 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
2849 know have closed down the experiment.  Perhaps Telenor or others would
2850 be interested in a cooperation?</p>
2851
2852 <p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
2853 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
2854 by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
2855 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
2856 mesh system.</p>
2857
2858       </div>
2859       <div class="tags">
2860
2861
2862         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
2863
2864
2865       </div>
2866     </div>
2867     <div class="padding"></div>
2868
2869     <div class="entry">
2870       <div class="title">
2871         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_7_1_install_and_overview_video_from_Marcelo_Salvador.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu 7.1 install and overview video from Marcelo Salvador</a>
2872       </div>
2873       <div class="date">
2874          8th October 2013
2875       </div>
2876       <div class="body">
2877         <p>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
2878 Salvador had published a
2879 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc">video on
2880 Youtube</a> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
2881 Skolelinux profile.  This is the profile intended for use at home or
2882 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
2883 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
2884 in other word a single user machine).  The result is 11 minutes long,
2885 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
2886 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
2887 showing the <a href="http://www.zygotebody.com/">Zygote Body 3D model
2888 of the human body</a>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
2889 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
2890 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
2891 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
2892 computers without hard drives by installing one central
2893 <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP server</a>.</p>
2894
2895 <p>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:</p>
2896
2897 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
2898
2899 <p>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux?  Please let
2900 me know. :)</p>
2901
2902       </div>
2903       <div class="tags">
2904
2905
2906         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
2907
2908
2909       </div>
2910     </div>
2911     <div class="padding"></div>
2912
2913     <div class="entry">
2914       <div class="title">
2915         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html">Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!</a>
2916       </div>
2917       <div class="date">
2918         29th September 2013
2919       </div>
2920       <div class="body">
2921         <p>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
2922 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team.  The
2923 complete announcement text can be found at
2924 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130928">the Debian News
2925 section</a>, translated to several languages.  Please check it out.</p>
2926
2927 <p>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon.  One
2928 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
2929 partition is too small.  A workaround is to extend the partition (use
2930 lvresize + resize2fs in tty 2 while installing).</p>
2931
2932       </div>
2933       <div class="tags">
2934
2935
2936         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2937
2938
2939       </div>
2940     </div>
2941     <div class="padding"></div>
2942
2943     <div class="entry">
2944       <div class="title">
2945         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
2946       </div>
2947       <div class="date">
2948         27th September 2013
2949       </div>
2950       <div class="body">
2951         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
2952 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
2953 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
2954 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
2955
2956 <ul>
2957
2958 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
2959 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
2960
2961 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
2962 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2963
2964 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
2965 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
2966 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
2967 (Youtube)</li>
2968
2969 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
2970 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
2971
2972 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
2973 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2974
2975 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
2976 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
2977 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
2978
2979 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
2980 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
2981 (Youtube)</li>
2982
2983 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
2984 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
2985
2986 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
2987 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
2988
2989 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
2990 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2991 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
2992
2993 </ul>
2994
2995 <p>A larger list is available from
2996 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
2997 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
2998
2999 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
3000 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
3001 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
3002 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
3003 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
3004 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
3005 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
3006 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
3007 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
3008 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
3009 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
3010
3011       </div>
3012       <div class="tags">
3013
3014
3015         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
3016
3017
3018       </div>
3019     </div>
3020     <div class="padding"></div>
3021
3022     <div class="entry">
3023       <div class="title">
3024         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_and_probably_last_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Wheezy.html">Third and probably last beta release of Debian Edu Wheezy</a>
3025       </div>
3026       <div class="date">
3027         16th September 2013
3028       </div>
3029       <div class="body">
3030         <p>The third wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
3031 today.  This is the release announcement from Holger Levsen:</p>
3032
3033 <blockquote>
3034 <p>Hi,</p>
3035
3036 <p>it is my pleasure to announce the third beta release (beta 2 for
3037 short) of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
3038 Skolelinux</a> based on Debian Wheezy!</p>
3039
3040 <p>Please test these images extensivly, if no new problems are found
3041 we plan to do this final Debian Edu Wheezy release this coming
3042 weekend.  We are not aware of any major problems or blockers in beta2,
3043 if you find something, please notify us immediately!</p>
3044
3045 <p>(More about the remaining steps for the Edu Wheezy release in
3046 another mail to the edu list tonight or tomorrow...)</p>
3047
3048 <p>Noteworthy changes and software updates for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b2
3049 compared to beta1:</p>
3050
3051 <ul>
3052
3053 <li>The KDE proxy setup has been adjusted to use the provided wpad.dat. This
3054 also gets Chromium to use this proxy.</li>
3055 <li>Install kdepim-groupware with KDE desktops to make sure korganizer
3056 understand ical/dav sources.</li>
3057 <li>Increased default maximum size of /var/spool/squid and /skole/backup on the
3058 main server.</li>
3059 <li>A source DVD image containing all source packages is now available as well.</li>
3060 <li>Updates for chromium (29.0.1547.57-1~deb7u1), imagemagick
3061 (6.7.7.10-5+deb7u2), php5 (5.4.4-14+deb7u4), libmodplug
3062 (0.8.8.4-3+deb7u1+git20130828), tiff (4.0.2-6+deb7u2), linux-image
3063 (3.2.0-4-486_3.2.46-1+deb7u1).</li>
3064
3065 </ul>
3066
3067 <p>Where to get it:</p>
3068
3069 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
3070
3071 <ul>
3072 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
3073 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
3074 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso .</li>
3075 </ul>
3076
3077 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is:  3a1c89f4666df80eebcd46c5bf5fedb866f9472f</p>
3078
3079 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
3080 <ul>
3081 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
3082 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
3083 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso .</li>
3084 </ul>
3085
3086 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 702d1718548f401c74bfa6df9f032cc3ee16597e</p>
3087
3088 <p>The Source DVD image has the filename
3089 debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-source-DVD.iso and the SHA1SUM
3090 089eed8b3f962db47aae1f6a9685e9bb2fa30ca5 and is available the same way
3091 as the other isos.</p>
3092
3093 <p>How to report bugs</p>
3094
3095 <p>For information how to report bugs please see
3096 <br><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
3097
3098
3099 <p>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</p>
3100
3101 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
3102 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
3103 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
3104 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
3105 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
3106 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
3107 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
3108 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
3109 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
3110 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
3111 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
3112 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
3113 can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
3114
3115 <p>This is the seventh test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
3116 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
3117 Squeeze release.</p>
3118
3119 <p>Notes for upgrades from Alpha Prereleases</p>
3120
3121 <p>Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
3122 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
3123 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
3124 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
3125 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined on the mailing list. (2)
3126 Accept the new version of gosa.conf and replace both contained admin
3127 password placeholders with the password hashes found in the old one
3128 (backup copy!). In both cases all users need to change their password
3129 to make sure a password is set for CIFS access to their home
3130 directory.</p>
3131
3132
3133 <p>cheers,
3134 <br>        Holger</p>
3135 </blockquote>
3136
3137       </div>
3138       <div class="tags">
3139
3140
3141         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3142
3143
3144       </div>
3145     </div>
3146     <div class="padding"></div>
3147
3148     <div class="entry">
3149       <div class="title">
3150         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
3151       </div>
3152       <div class="date">
3153         10th September 2013
3154       </div>
3155       <div class="body">
3156         <p>I was introduced to the
3157 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
3158 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
3159 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
3160 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
3161 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
3162 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
3163 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
3164 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
3165
3166 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
3167 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
3168 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
3169 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
3170 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
3171
3172 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
3173 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
3174 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
3175 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
3176 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
3177 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
3178 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
3179 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
3180 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
3181 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
3182 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
3183 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
3184 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
3185 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
3186 missing in Debian).</p>
3187
3188 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
3189 scripts
3190 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
3191 and a administrative web interface
3192 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
3193 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
3194 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
3195 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
3196 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
3197 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
3198 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
3199 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
3200 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
3201 this is really working yet, see
3202 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
3203 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
3204 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
3205 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
3206 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
3207 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
3208 with lots of half baked features.</p>
3209
3210 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
3211 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
3212 at.</p>
3213
3214 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
3215
3216 <ol>
3217
3218 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
3219 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
3220 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
3221 to the Debian installer:<p>
3222 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
3223
3224 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
3225 install on.</li>
3226
3227 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
3228 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
3229
3230 </ol>
3231
3232 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
3233
3234 <ol>
3235
3236 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
3237 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
3238 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
3239 <pre>
3240 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
3241 </pre></li>
3242 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
3243 <pre>
3244 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
3245    apt-key add -
3246 apt-get update
3247 apt-get install freedombox-setup
3248 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
3249 </pre></li>
3250 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
3251
3252 </ol>
3253
3254 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
3255 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
3256 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
3257 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
3258 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
3259
3260 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
3261 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
3262 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
3263 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
3264
3265 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
3266 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
3267 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
3268 irc.debian.org and the
3269 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
3270 mailing list</a>.</p>
3271
3272 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
3273 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
3274 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
3275 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
3276 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
3277 default password is 'secret'.</p>
3278
3279       </div>
3280       <div class="tags">
3281
3282
3283         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
3284
3285
3286       </div>
3287     </div>
3288     <div class="padding"></div>
3289
3290     <div class="entry">
3291       <div class="title">
3292         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_release__beta_1__of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second beta release (beta 1) of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
3293       </div>
3294       <div class="date">
3295         22nd August 2013
3296       </div>
3297       <div class="body">
3298         <p>The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
3299 today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
3300 integration fixes .  This is the release announcement:</p>
3301
3302 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22</strong></p>
3303
3304 <p>These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3305 7.1+edu0~b1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
3306
3307 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
3308
3309 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
3310 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
3311 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
3312 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
3313 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
3314 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
3315 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
3316 the main server from CD or USB stick all other machines can be
3317 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
3318 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
3319 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
3320 desktop contains
3321 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
3322 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
3323 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
3324 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
3325
3326 <p>This is the sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
3327 is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
3328 release.</p>
3329
3330 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
3331 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
3332 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
3333 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
3334 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
3335 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/08/msg00127.html">on
3336 the mailing list</a>. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
3337 replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
3338 hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
3339 need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
3340 CIFS access to their home directory.</p>
3341
3342 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
3343
3344 <ul>
3345
3346 <li>Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
3347     work also without a attached tty.</li>
3348 <li>Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
3349     make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
3350     tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
3351     has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
3352     required).</li>
3353
3354 </ul>
3355
3356 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
3357
3358 <ul>
3359
3360 <li>Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
3361 needed for desktop=xfce installations.</li>
3362 <li>Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
3363 stick ISO image.</li>
3364 <li>Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).</li>
3365 <li>Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.</li>
3366 <li>Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
3367     during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
3368     cope with this.</li>
3369 <li>Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².</li>
3370 <li>Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
3371     empty password hashes.</li>
3372 <li>Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
3373     smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
3374     from joining the Samba domain.</li>
3375
3376 </ul>
3377
3378 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
3379
3380 <ul>
3381
3382 <li>KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
3383     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
3384 <li>Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
3385     (using the KDE configuration).</li>
3386
3387 </ul>
3388
3389 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
3390
3391 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
3392
3393 <ul>
3394
3395 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
3396
3397 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
3398
3399 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso .</li>
3400
3401 </ul>
3402
3403 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
3404 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2</p>
3405
3406 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
3407
3408 <ul>
3409
3410 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
3411 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
3412 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso .</li>
3413
3414 </ul>
3415
3416 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
3417 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119</p>
3418
3419
3420 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
3421
3422 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
3423
3424       </div>
3425       <div class="tags">
3426
3427
3428         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3429
3430
3431       </div>
3432     </div>
3433     <div class="padding"></div>
3434
3435     <div class="entry">
3436       <div class="title">
3437         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
3438       </div>
3439       <div class="date">
3440         18th August 2013
3441       </div>
3442       <div class="body">
3443         <p>Earlier, I reported about
3444 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
3445 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
3446 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
3447 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
3448 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
3449 currently on the disk.</p>
3450
3451 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
3452 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
3453 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
3454 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
3455 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
3456 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
3457 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
3458 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
3459 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
3460 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
3461 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
3462 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
3463 the broken disks.</p>
3464
3465       </div>
3466       <div class="tags">
3467
3468
3469         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>.
3470
3471
3472       </div>
3473     </div>
3474     <div class="padding"></div>
3475
3476     <div class="entry">
3477       <div class="title">
3478         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/90_percent_done_with_the_Norwegian_draft_translation_of_Free_Culture.html">90 percent done with the Norwegian draft translation of Free Culture</a>
3479       </div>
3480       <div class="date">
3481          2nd August 2013
3482       </div>
3483       <div class="body">
3484         <p>It has been a while since my last update.  Since last summer, I
3485 have worked on a Norwegian
3486 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
3487 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
3488 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright
3489 law.  Yesterday, I finally broken the 90% mark, when counting the
3490 number of strings to translate.  Due to real life constraints, I have
3491 not had time to work on it since March, but when the summer broke out,
3492 I found time to work on it again.  Still lots of work left, but the
3493 first draft is nearing completion.  I created a graph to show the
3494 progress of the translation:</p>
3495
3496 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
3497
3498 <p>When the first draft is done, the translated text need to be
3499 proof read, and the remaining formatting problems with images and SVG
3500 drawings need to be fixed.  There are probably also some index entries
3501 missing that need to be added.  This can be done by comparing the
3502 index entries listed in the SiSU version of the book, or comparing the
3503 English docbook version with the paper version.  Last, the colophon
3504 page with ISBN numbers etc need to be wrapped up before the release is
3505 done.  I should also figure out how to get correct Norwegian sorting
3506 of the index pages.  All docbook tools I have tried so far (xmlto,
3507 docbook-xsl, dblatex) get the order of symbols and the special
3508 Norwegian letters ÆØÅ wrong.</p>
3509
3510 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
3511 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
3512 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
3513 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
3514 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
3515 around?  There are also some legal terms that are unfamiliar to me.
3516 If you want to help, please get in touch with me, and check out the
3517 project files currently available from
3518 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
3519
3520 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
3521 the updated
3522 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
3523 and
3524 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
3525 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
3526 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
3527 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
3528
3529       </div>
3530       <div class="tags">
3531
3532
3533         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>.
3534
3535
3536       </div>
3537     </div>
3538     <div class="padding"></div>
3539
3540     <div class="entry">
3541       <div class="title">
3542         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First beta release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
3543       </div>
3544       <div class="date">
3545         27th July 2013
3546       </div>
3547       <div class="body">
3548         <p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
3549 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
3550
3551 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released
3552 2013-07-27</strong></p>
3553
3554 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3555 7.1+edu0~b0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
3556
3557 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
3558
3559 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
3560 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
3561 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
3562 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
3563 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
3564 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
3565 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
3566 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
3567 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
3568 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
3569 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
3570 desktop contains
3571 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
3572 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
3573 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
3574 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
3575
3576 <p>This is the fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
3577 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
3578 Squeeze release.</p>
3579
3580 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
3581 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
3582 release.</p>
3583
3584 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
3585
3586 <ul>
3587
3588 <li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager
3589    for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li>
3590 <li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser
3591    packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced
3592    by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those
3593    installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa
3594    and libpam-mklocaluser.</li>
3595 <li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li>
3596 <li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li>
3597 <li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of
3598    crash bugs.</li>
3599
3600 </ul>
3601
3602 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
3603
3604 <ul>
3605
3606 <li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break
3607    desktop=gnome installations.</li>
3608 <li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the
3609    netinst CD.</li>
3610 <li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific
3611    setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li>
3612 <li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at
3613    install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash
3614    with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li>
3615 <li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient
3616    exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host
3617    name setting at run time to work again.</li>
3618 <li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL
3619    fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by
3620    updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li>
3621 <li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique
3622    (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li>
3623 <li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li>
3624
3625 </ul>
3626
3627 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
3628
3629 <ul>
3630
3631 <li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li>
3632 <li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
3633     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
3634 <li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</li>
3635
3636 </ul>
3637
3638 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
3639
3640 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
3641
3642 <ul>
3643
3644 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
3645
3646 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
3647
3648 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li>
3649
3650 </ul>
3651
3652 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109
3653 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</p>
3654
3655 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
3656
3657 <ul>
3658
3659 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
3660 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
3661 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li>
3662
3663 </ul>
3664
3665 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69
3666 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</p>
3667
3668
3669 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
3670
3671 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
3672
3673       </div>
3674       <div class="tags">
3675
3676
3677         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3678
3679
3680       </div>
3681     </div>
3682     <div class="padding"></div>
3683
3684     <div class="entry">
3685       <div class="title">
3686         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
3687       </div>
3688       <div class="date">
3689         17th July 2013
3690       </div>
3691       <div class="body">
3692         <p>Today I switched to
3693 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
3694 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
3695 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
3696 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
3697 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
3698 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
3699 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
3700 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
3701 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
3702 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
3703 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
3704 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
3705 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
3706 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
3707 station from now on.</p>
3708
3709 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
3710 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
3711 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
3712 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
3713 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
3714 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
3715 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
3716 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
3717 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
3718 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
3719 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
3720 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
3721
3722 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
3723 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
3724 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
3725 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
3726 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
3727 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
3728 parameters are tuned:</p>
3729
3730 <ul>
3731
3732 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
3733     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
3734
3735 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
3736     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
3737     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
3738
3739 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
3740     systems.</li>
3741
3742 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
3743     /etc/fstab.</li>
3744
3745 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
3746
3747 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
3748     cron.daily).</li>
3749
3750 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
3751     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
3752
3753 </ul>
3754
3755 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
3756 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
3757 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
3758 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
3759 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
3760 from getting the data on the disk (see
3761 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
3762 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
3763 right thing to do.</p>
3764
3765 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
3766 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
3767 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
3768
3769 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
3770 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
3771 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
3772 instead of during my work.</p>
3773
3774 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
3775 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
3776
3777 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
3778 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
3779 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
3780
3781 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
3782 there.</p>
3783
3784 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
3785 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
3786 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
3787 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
3788 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
3789 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
3790 back.</p>
3791
3792       </div>
3793       <div class="tags">
3794
3795
3796         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>.
3797
3798
3799       </div>
3800     </div>
3801     <div class="padding"></div>
3802
3803     <div class="entry">
3804       <div class="title">
3805         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
3806       </div>
3807       <div class="date">
3808         10th July 2013
3809       </div>
3810       <div class="body">
3811         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
3812 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
3813 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
3814 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
3815 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
3816 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
3817 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
3818 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
3819
3820 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
3821 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
3822 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
3823 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
3824 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
3825 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
3826 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
3827 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
3828 lock up when I download a new
3829 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
3830 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
3831 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
3832
3833 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
3834 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
3835 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
3836 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
3837 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
3838 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
3839
3840 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
3841 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
3842 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
3843 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
3844 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
3845 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
3846
3847 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
3848 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
3849 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
3850 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
3851 exist).</p>
3852
3853       </div>
3854       <div class="tags">
3855
3856
3857         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>.
3858
3859
3860       </div>
3861     </div>
3862     <div class="padding"></div>
3863
3864     <div class="entry">
3865       <div class="title">
3866         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
3867       </div>
3868       <div class="date">
3869          9th July 2013
3870       </div>
3871       <div class="body">
3872         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
3873 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
3874 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
3875 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
3876 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3877 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
3878 Bitraf</a>.</p>
3879
3880 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
3881 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
3882 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
3883 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
3884 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
3885
3886       </div>
3887       <div class="tags">
3888
3889
3890         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>.
3891
3892
3893       </div>
3894     </div>
3895     <div class="padding"></div>
3896
3897     <div class="entry">
3898       <div class="title">
3899         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
3900       </div>
3901       <div class="date">
3902          5th July 2013
3903       </div>
3904       <div class="body">
3905         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
3906 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
3907 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
3908 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
3909 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
3910 ended up picking a
3911 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
3912 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
3913 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
3914 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
3915 on that below.</p>
3916
3917 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3918 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3919 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3920 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3921 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3922 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
3923 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
3924 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
3925 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
3926
3927 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
3928 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
3929 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
3930 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
3931 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
3932 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
3933 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
3934
3935 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
3936 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
3937
3938 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
3939 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
3940 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
3941 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
3942 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
3943 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
3944 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
3945 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
3946 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
3947 kernel developers as
3948 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
3949 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
3950 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
3951 Lenovo forums, both for
3952 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
3953 2012-11-10</a> and for
3954 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
3955 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
3956 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
3957 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
3958 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
3959 There is even a
3960 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
3961 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
3962 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
3963
3964 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
3965 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
3966 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
3967 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
3968 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
3969 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
3970 fixed. :)</p>
3971
3972       </div>
3973       <div class="tags">
3974
3975
3976         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>.
3977
3978
3979       </div>
3980     </div>
3981     <div class="padding"></div>
3982
3983     <div class="entry">
3984       <div class="title">
3985         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
3986       </div>
3987       <div class="date">
3988          4th July 2013
3989       </div>
3990       <div class="body">
3991         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
3992 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
3993 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
3994 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
3995 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
3996 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
3997 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
3998 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
3999 with an expencive door stop.</p>
4000
4001 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
4002 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
4003 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
4004 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
4005 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
4006 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
4007 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
4008
4009 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
4010 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
4011 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
4012 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
4013 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
4014 new laptop now. :)</p>
4015
4016 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
4017
4018       </div>
4019       <div class="tags">
4020
4021
4022         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>.
4023
4024
4025       </div>
4026     </div>
4027     <div class="padding"></div>
4028
4029     <div class="entry">
4030       <div class="title">
4031         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fourth_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Fourth alpha release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
4032       </div>
4033       <div class="date">
4034          3rd July 2013
4035       </div>
4036       <div class="body">
4037         <p>The fourth wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
4038 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
4039
4040 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~alpha3 released
4041 2013-07-03</strong></p>
4042
4043 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4044 7.1+edu0~alpha3, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
4045
4046 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
4047
4048 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
4049 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
4050 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
4051 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
4052 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
4053 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
4054 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
4055 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
4056 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
4057 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
4058 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
4059 desktop contains
4060 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
4061 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
4062 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
4063 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
4064
4065 <p>This is the fourth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
4066 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
4067 Squeeze release.</p>
4068
4069 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
4070 <ul>
4071   <li>Dropped ispell dictionaries from our default installation.</li>
4072   <li>Dropped menu-xdg from the KDE desktop option, to drop the Debian
4073     submenu.  It was not included with Gnome, LXDE or Xfce, so this
4074     brings KDE in line with the others.</li>
4075   <li>Dropped xdrawchem, xjig and xsok from our default installation as
4076     they don't have a desktop menu entry and thus won't show up in the
4077     menu now that menu-xdg was removed.</li>
4078   <li>Removed the killer system to kill left behind processes on
4079     multi-user machines, as it was no longer able to understand when a
4080     X display was in use and killed the processes of the active users
4081     too.</li>
4082   <li>Dropped the golearn (from goplay) package as the debtags in wheezy
4083     are too few to make the package useful.</li>
4084 </ul>
4085 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
4086 <ul>
4087   <li>Updated artwork matching http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Joy
4088   <li>Multi-arch i386/amd64 USB stick ISO available.</li>
4089   <li>Got rid of ispell/wordlist related debconf questions that showed
4090     up for some language options.</li>
4091   <li>Switched to using http.debian.net as APT source by default.</li>
4092   <li>Fixed proxy configuration on Main Server installations.</li>
4093   <li>Changed LTSP setup to ask dpkg to use force-unsafe-io the same way
4094     d-i is doing it.</li>
4095   <li>Made sure root and user passwords were not left behind in the
4096     debconf database after installation on Main Server installations.</li>
4097   <li>Made Roaming Workstation dynamic setup more robust and added draft
4098     script setup-ad-client to hook a Roaming Workstation up to a
4099     Active Directory server instead of a Debian Edu Main Server.</li>
4100   <li>Update system to install needed firmware packages during
4101     installation, to work properly in Wheezy.</li>
4102   <li>Update system to handle hardware quirks (debian-edu-hwsetup).</li>
4103   <li>Corrected PXE installation setup to properly pass selected desktop
4104     and keymap settings to PXE installation clients.</li>
4105   <li>LTSP diskless workstations use sshfs by default, allowing them to
4106     work without adding them to DNS and NIS netgroups for NFS access.</li>
4107 </ul>
4108 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
4109 <ul>
4110   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
4111     available yet (698840).</li>
4112   <li>Artwork not enabled for all desktops.</li>
4113 </ul>
4114 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
4115
4116 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
4117 <ul>
4118   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
4119   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
4120   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso .</li>
4121 </ul>
4122
4123 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 2b161a99d2a848c376d8d04e3854e30c
4124 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 498922e9c508c0a7ee9dbe1dfe5bf830d779c3c8</p>
4125
4126 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
4127 <ul>
4128   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
4129   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
4130   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso .</li>
4131 </ul>
4132
4133 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 25e808e403a4c15dbef1d13c37d572ac
4134 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 15ecfc93eb6b4f453b7eb0bc04b6a279262d9721</p>
4135
4136 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
4137
4138 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
4139
4140       </div>
4141       <div class="tags">
4142
4143
4144         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4145
4146
4147       </div>
4148     </div>
4149     <div class="padding"></div>
4150
4151     <div class="entry">
4152       <div class="title">
4153         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
4154       </div>
4155       <div class="date">
4156         25th June 2013
4157       </div>
4158       <div class="body">
4159         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
4160 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
4161 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
4162 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
4163 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
4164 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
4165 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
4166 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
4167 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
4168 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
4169 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
4170
4171 <p><pre>
4172 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
4173 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
4174 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
4175 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
4176 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
4177 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
4178 firmware-ipw2x00
4179 firmware-ipw2x00
4180 Preconfiguring packages ...
4181 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
4182 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
4183 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
4184 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
4185 #
4186 </pre></p>
4187
4188 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
4189 printed instead:</p>
4190
4191 <p><pre>
4192 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
4193 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
4194 #
4195 </pre></p>
4196
4197 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
4198 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
4199
4200 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
4201 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
4202 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
4203 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
4204 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
4205 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
4206 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
4207 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
4208 machine.</p>
4209
4210 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
4211 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
4212 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
4213 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
4214 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
4215 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
4216
4217       </div>
4218       <div class="tags">
4219
4220
4221         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>.
4222
4223
4224       </div>
4225     </div>
4226     <div class="padding"></div>
4227
4228     <div class="entry">
4229       <div class="title">
4230         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_value_of_a_good_distro_wide_test_suite___.html">The value of a good distro wide test suite...</a>
4231       </div>
4232       <div class="date">
4233         22nd June 2013
4234       </div>
4235       <div class="body">
4236         <p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
4237 Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
4238 which check that services are running, working, and return the
4239 expected results.  It runs automatically just after the first boot on
4240 test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
4241 installations (using non-test ISOs).  It test that the LDAP service is
4242 operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
4243 online resizable, etc, etc.  And it check that the PXE service is
4244 configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
4245
4246 <p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
4247 Edu Wheezy release.  These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
4248 complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
4249 happen all the needed packages need to be on them.  Thanks to our test
4250 suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
4251 cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
4252 When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
4253 using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
4254 working packages to get it working.  And the packages changed name
4255 from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
4256 debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
4257 packages during installation.  Without our test suite, I suspect we
4258 would never have discovered this before release.  Now it is fixed
4259 right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
4260
4261 <p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
4262 administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
4263 test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
4264 any errors are detected.  This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
4265 the problem.</p>
4266
4267 <p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
4268 please join us on
4269 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
4270 irc.debian.org</a> and the
4271 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
4272 list.</p>
4273
4274       </div>
4275       <div class="tags">
4276
4277
4278         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4279
4280
4281       </div>
4282     </div>
4283     <div class="padding"></div>
4284
4285     <div class="entry">
4286       <div class="title">
4287         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html">Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</a>
4288       </div>
4289       <div class="date">
4290         17th June 2013
4291       </div>
4292       <div class="body">
4293         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
4294 Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
4295 globe.  And a while back, an enterprising young man showed up on
4296 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">our IRC channel
4297 #debian-edu</a> and started asking questions about how Debian Edu
4298 worked.  We answered as good as we could, and even convinced him to
4299 help us with translations.  And today I managed to get an interview
4300 with him, to learn more about him.</p>
4301
4302 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4303
4304 <p>I'm a 25 year old free software enthusiast, living in Romania,
4305 which is also my country of origin. Back in 2009, at a New Year's Eve
4306 party, I had a very nice <strike>beer</strike> discussion with a
4307 friend, when we realized we have no organised Debian community in our
4308 country. A few days later, we put together the infrastructure for such
4309 community and even gathered a nice Debian-ish crowd. Since then, I
4310 began my quest as a free software hacker and activist and I am
4311 constantly trying to cover as much ground as possible on that
4312 field.</p>
4313
4314 <p>A few years ago I founded a small web development company, which
4315 provided me the flexible schedule I needed so much for my
4316 activities. For the last 13 months, I have been the Technical Director
4317 of <a href="http://ceata.org/">Fundația Ceata</a>, which is a free
4318 software activist organisation endorsed by the FSF and the FSFE, and
4319 the only one we have in our country.</p>
4320
4321 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
4322 project?</strong></p>
4323
4324 <p>The idea of participating in the Debian Edu project was a surprise
4325 even to me, since I never used it before I began getting involved in
4326 it. This year I had a great opportunity to deliver a talk on
4327 educational software, and I knew immediately where to look. It was a
4328 love at first sight, since I was previously involved with some of the
4329 technologies the project incorporates, and I rapidly found a lot of
4330 ways to contribute.</p>
4331
4332 <p>My first contributions consisted in translating the installer and
4333 configuration dialogs, then I found some bugs to squash (I still
4334 haven't fixed them yet though), and I even got my eyes on some other
4335 areas where I can prove myself helpful. Since the appetite for free
4336 software in my country is pretty low, I'll be happy to be the first
4337 one around here advocating for the project's adoption in educational
4338 environments, and maybe even get my hands dirty in creating a flavour
4339 for our own needs. I am not used to make very advanced plannings, so
4340 from now on, time will tell what I'll be doing next, but I think I
4341 have a pretty consistent starting point.</p>
4342
4343 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4344 Edu?</strong></p>
4345
4346 <p>Not a long time ago, I was in the position of configuring and
4347 maintaining a LDAP server on some Debian derivative, and I must say it
4348 took me a while. A long time ago, I was maintaining a bigger
4349 Samba-powered infrastructure, and I must say I spent quite a lot of
4350 time on it. I have similar stories about many of the services included
4351 with Skolelinux, and the main advantage I see about it is the
4352 out-of-the box availability of them, making it quite competitive when
4353 it comes to managing a school's network, for example.</p>
4354
4355 <p>Of course, there is more to say about Skolelinux than the
4356 availability of the software included, its flexibility in various
4357 scenarios is something I can't wait to experiment "into the wild" (I
4358 only played with virtual machines so far). And I am sure there is a
4359 lot more I haven't discovered yet about it, being so new within the
4360 project.</p>
4361
4362 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
4363 Edu?</strong></p>
4364
4365 <p>As usual, when it comes to Debian Blends, I see as the biggest
4366 disadvantage the lack of a numerous team dedicated to the
4367 project. Every day I see the same names in the changelogs, and I have
4368 a constantly fear of the bus factor in this story.  I'd like to see
4369 Debian Edu advertised more as an entry point into the Debian
4370 ecosystem, especially amongst newcomers and students. IMHO there are a
4371 lot low-hanging fruits in terms of bug squashing, and enough
4372 opportunities to get the feeling of the Debian Project's dynamics. Not
4373 to mention it's a very fun blend to work on!</p>
4374
4375 <p>Derived from the previous statement, is the delay in catching up
4376 with the main Debian release and documentation. This is common though
4377 to all blends and derivatives, but it's an issue we can all work
4378 on.</p>
4379
4380 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4381
4382 <p>I can hardly imagine myself spending a day without Vim, since my
4383 daily routine covers writing code and hacking configuration files. I
4384 am a fan of the Awesome window manager (but I also like the
4385 Enlightenment project a lot!),
4386 <a href="http://www.claws-mail.org/‎">Claws Mail</a> due to its ease of
4387 use and very configurable behaviour. Recently I fell in love with
4388 <a href="https://launchpad.net/redshift">Redshift</a>, which helps me
4389 get through the night without headaches. Of course, there is much more
4390 stuff in this bag, but I'll need a blog on my own for doing this!</p>
4391
4392 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4393 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4394
4395 <p>Well, on this field, I cannot do much more than experiment right
4396 now. So, being far from having a recipe for success, I can only assume
4397 that:</p>
4398
4399 <ul>
4400
4401 <li>schools would like to get rid of proprietary software</li>
4402
4403 <li>students will love the openness of the system, and will want to
4404     experiment with it - maybe we need to harvest the native curiosity
4405     of teenagers more?</li>
4406
4407 <li>there is no "right one" when it comes to strategies, but it would
4408     be useful to have some success stories published somewhere, so
4409     other can get some inspiration from them (I know I'd promote
4410     them!)</li>
4411
4412 <li>more active promotion - talks, conferences, even small school
4413     lectures can do magical things if they encounter at least one
4414     person interested. Who knows who that person might be? ;-)</li>
4415
4416 </ul>
4417
4418 <p>I also see some problems in getting Skolelinux into schools; for
4419 example, in our country we have a great deal of corruption issues, so
4420 it might be hard(er) to fight against proprietary solutions. Also,
4421 people who relied on commercial software for all their lives, would be
4422 very hard to convert against their will.</p>
4423
4424       </div>
4425       <div class="tags">
4426
4427
4428         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4429
4430
4431       </div>
4432     </div>
4433     <div class="padding"></div>
4434
4435     <div class="entry">
4436       <div class="title">
4437         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a>
4438       </div>
4439       <div class="date">
4440         12th June 2013
4441       </div>
4442       <div class="body">
4443         <p>There is a certain cross-over between the
4444 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4445 project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
4446 project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
4447 effort between the projects.  One person with a foot in both camps is
4448 Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
4449
4450 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4451
4452 <p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
4453 days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
4454 getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
4455
4456 <p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
4457 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
4458 each other.</p>
4459
4460 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
4461 project?</strong></p>
4462
4463 <p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
4464 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
4465 [Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
4466 London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
4467 Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
4468 it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
4469 was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
4470 day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
4471 over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
4472 been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
4473 still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
4474 we'll get there one day.</p>
4475
4476 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
4477 Edu?</strong></p>
4478
4479 <p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
4480 it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
4481 that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
4482 very high quality work.</p>
4483
4484 <p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
4485 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
4486 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
4487 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
4488 community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
4489
4490 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
4491 Edu?</strong></p>
4492
4493 <p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
4494 separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
4495 what I originally rambled on about)</p>
4496
4497 <p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
4498 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
4499 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
4500 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
4501 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
4502 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
4503 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
4504 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
4505 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
4506 currently.</p>
4507
4508 <p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
4509 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
4510 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
4511 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
4512 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
4513 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
4514 autonomous.</p>
4515
4516 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4517
4518 <p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
4519 Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
4520 some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
4521 particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
4522 so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
4523
4524 <p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
4525 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
4526 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
4527 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
4528 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
4529 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
4530 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
4531 X.</p>
4532
4533 <p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
4534 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
4535 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
4536 it :p)
4537
4538 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4539 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4540
4541 <p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
4542 many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
4543 don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
4544 that.</p>
4545
4546 <p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
4547 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
4548 advantage of that.</p>
4549
4550 <p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
4551 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
4552 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
4553 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
4554 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
4555 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
4556 best solution for them.</p>
4557
4558 <p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
4559 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
4560 make a decision that would work for them.</p>
4561
4562       </div>
4563       <div class="tags">
4564
4565
4566         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4567
4568
4569       </div>
4570     </div>
4571     <div class="padding"></div>
4572
4573     <div class="entry">
4574       <div class="title">
4575         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
4576       </div>
4577       <div class="date">
4578         11th June 2013
4579       </div>
4580       <div class="body">
4581         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
4582 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
4583 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
4584 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
4585 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
4586 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
4587 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
4588 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
4589 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
4590 i915 driver used by the
4591 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
4592 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
4593
4594 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
4595 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
4596 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
4597 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
4598 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
4599
4600 <pre>
4601 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
4602 update-initramfs -u -k all
4603 </pre>
4604
4605 <p>Since March 2012 there is
4606 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
4607 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
4608 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
4609 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
4610 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
4611 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
4612 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
4613 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
4614 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
4615 number.</p>
4616
4617 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
4618 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
4619
4620 <p><pre>
4621 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
4622     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
4623     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
4624  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
4625  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
4626     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
4627  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
4628     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
4629  Latency: 0
4630  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
4631  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
4632  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
4633  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
4634  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
4635  Capabilities: <access denied>
4636  Kernel driver in use: i915
4637 </pre></p>
4638
4639 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
4640
4641 <p><pre>
4642 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
4643        ...
4644         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
4645         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
4646        ...
4647 }
4648 </pre></p>
4649
4650 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
4651 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
4652 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
4653 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
4654 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
4655 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
4656 yet shown up in
4657 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
4658 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
4659 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
4660 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
4661 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
4662 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
4663
4664 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
4665 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
4666 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
4667 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
4668 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
4669 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
4670 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
4671 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
4672 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
4673 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
4674 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
4675 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
4676
4677 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
4678 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
4679 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
4680 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
4681 backlight.</p>
4682
4683       </div>
4684       <div class="tags">
4685
4686
4687         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>.
4688
4689
4690       </div>
4691     </div>
4692     <div class="padding"></div>
4693
4694     <div class="entry">
4695       <div class="title">
4696         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Third alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
4697       </div>
4698       <div class="date">
4699         10th June 2013
4700       </div>
4701       <div class="body">
4702         <p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
4703 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
4704
4705 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
4706 2013-06-10</strong></p>
4707
4708 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
4709 alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
4710
4711 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
4712
4713 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
4714 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
4715 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
4716 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
4717 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
4718 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
4719 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
4720 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
4721 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
4722 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
4723 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
4724 desktop contains
4725 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
4726 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
4727 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
4728 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
4729
4730 <p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
4731 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
4732 Squeeze release.</p>
4733
4734 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
4735
4736 <ul>
4737
4738 <li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
4739 <li>Updated libxv (DSA-2674), libxvmc (DSA-2675), libxfixes (DSA-2676), libxrender (DSA-2677), mesa (DSA-2678), xserver-xorg-video-openchrome (DSA-2679), libxt (DSA-2680), libxcursor (DSA-2681), libxext (DSA-2682), libxi (DSA-2683), libxrandr (DSA-2684), libxp (DSA-2685), libxcb (DSA-2686), libfs (DSA-2687), libxres (DSA-2688), libxtst (DSA-2689), libxxf86dga (DSA-2690), libxinerama (DSA-2691), libxxf86vm (DSA-2692), libx11 (DSA-2693), chromium-browser (DSA-2695), gnutls26 (DSA-2697), wireshark (DSA-2700), krb5 (DSA-2701), telepathy-gabble (DSA-2702) and subversion (DSA-2703).
4740 <li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
4741 <li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
4742 <li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
4743
4744 </ul>
4745
4746 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
4747
4748 <ul>
4749
4750 <li>The subnet-change script is now able to change all files needing a change on the main-server when changing the IP network used.
4751 <li>Updated translation of the installation.
4752 <li>New Romanian translation.
4753 <li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
4754 <li>Fix roaming workstation setup (Closed in libpam-mklocaluser/0.8, libpam-mklocaluser/0.8~deb7u1: #706753: libpam-mklocaluser: Fail to create local user during first login).
4755 <li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
4756 <li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
4757 <li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
4758 <li>More testsuite tests.
4759 <li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
4760 <li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
4761
4762 <li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
4763 LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
4764
4765 <li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
4766 them up with GOsa².</li>
4767
4768 <li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
4769
4770 <li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
4771 slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
4772 entered password). </li>
4773
4774 </ul>
4775
4776 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
4777
4778 <ul>
4779
4780 <li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
4781
4782 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
4783 available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
4784 missing import feature).</li>
4785
4786 <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
4787
4788 <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
4789 own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
4790 unfixed.</li>
4791
4792 </ul>
4793
4794 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
4795
4796 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
4797
4798 <ul>
4799
4800 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
4801
4802 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
4803
4804 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
4805
4806 </ul>
4807
4808 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
4809 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
4810
4811 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
4812
4813 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
4814
4815       </div>
4816       <div class="tags">
4817
4818
4819         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4820
4821
4822       </div>
4823     </div>
4824     <div class="padding"></div>
4825
4826     <div class="entry">
4827       <div class="title">
4828         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_there_a_PHP_expert_in_the_building___Debian_Edu_need_help_.html">Is there a PHP expert in the building?  Debian Edu need help!</a>
4829       </div>
4830       <div class="date">
4831          5th June 2013
4832       </div>
4833       <div class="body">
4834         <p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
4835 We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
4836 hope to get released soon.  The two problems require some with PHP
4837 skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
4838 the project:
4839
4840 <ol>
4841
4842 <li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
4843   (slbackup-php) using the root user and password.  This is
4844   <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
4845   This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
4846   Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
4847
4848 <li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
4849   using ldif nor using CSV files.  The feature was disabled after a
4850   major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
4851   This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
4852   #698840</a>.</li>
4853
4854 </ol>
4855
4856 <p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
4857 (<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
4858 irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
4859
4860       </div>
4861       <div class="tags">
4862
4863
4864         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4865
4866
4867       </div>
4868     </div>
4869     <div class="padding"></div>
4870
4871     <div class="entry">
4872       <div class="title">
4873         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a>
4874       </div>
4875       <div class="date">
4876          4th June 2013
4877       </div>
4878       <div class="body">
4879         <p>It has been a while since my last English
4880 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
4881 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
4882 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
4883 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
4884 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
4885
4886 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4887
4888 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
4889 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
4890 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
4891 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
4892
4893 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
4894 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
4895 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
4896
4897 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
4898 project?</strong></p>
4899
4900 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
4901 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
4902 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
4903 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
4904 manual.
4905
4906 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
4907 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
4908 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
4909 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
4910
4911 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
4912 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
4913 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
4914 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
4915 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
4916 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
4917 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
4918 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
4919 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
4920 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
4921
4922 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
4923 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
4924 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
4925 beautiful project.</p>
4926
4927 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
4928 Edu?</strong></p>
4929
4930 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
4931 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
4932 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
4933
4934 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
4935 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
4936 of educational free software.</p>
4937
4938 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
4939 Edu?</strong></p>
4940
4941 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
4942 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
4943 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
4944 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
4945 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
4946
4947 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
4948 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
4949 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
4950 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
4951 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
4952 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
4953 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
4954 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
4955
4956 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4957
4958 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
4959 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
4960 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
4961 also using the mathematical software
4962 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
4963 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
4964 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
4965
4966 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
4967 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
4968 statistics?</strong></p>
4969
4970 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
4971 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
4972 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
4973 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
4974
4975 <ul>
4976
4977 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
4978 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
4979 constructions in planar geometry
4980
4981 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
4982 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
4983 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
4984
4985 </ul>
4986
4987 <p>I like also
4988 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
4989 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
4990 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
4991
4992 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4993 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4994
4995 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
4996
4997 <ul>
4998
4999 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
5000
5001 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
5002     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
5003     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
5004
5005 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
5006
5007 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
5008     system.</li>
5009
5010 </ul>
5011
5012       </div>
5013       <div class="tags">
5014
5015
5016         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
5017
5018
5019       </div>
5020     </div>
5021     <div class="padding"></div>
5022
5023     <div class="entry">
5024       <div class="title">
5025         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">Educational applications included in Debian Edu / Skolelinux (the screenshot collection :-)</a>
5026       </div>
5027       <div class="date">
5028          1st June 2013
5029       </div>
5030       <div class="body">
5031         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
5032 Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
5033 Created to help teachers teach, and pupils learn.  We have tried to
5034 tag them all using debtags use::learning and role::program, and using
5035 the debtags I was happy to be able to create a collage of the
5036 educational software packages installed by default, sorted by the
5037 debtag field.  Here it is.  Click on a image to learn more about the
5038 program.</p>
5039
5040 <!-- for f in $(debtags tagcat|grep field::|awk '{print $2}'); do   echo; echo "<p><strong>$f</strong></p>"; echo "<p>";   (     for p in $(debtags search --names "use::learning && interface::x11 && role::program && $f"); do img="<img src='http://screenshots.debian.net/thumbnail/$p' alt='$p'>"; if dpkg -s $p > /dev/null 2>&1; then           echo "<a href='http://packages.qa.debian.org/$p'>$img</a>"; fi;     done;   ) | LANG=C sort; echo "</p>"; done -->
5041
5042 <p><strong>field::arts</strong></p>
5043 <p>
5044 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=audacity'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/audacity.png' alt='audacity'></a>
5045 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
5046 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=denemo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/denemo.png' alt='denemo'></a>
5047 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=freebirth'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/freebirth.png' alt='freebirth'></a>
5048 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
5049 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gimp'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gimp.png' alt='gimp'></a>
5050 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=hydrogen'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/hydrogen.png' alt='hydrogen'></a>
5051 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lilypond'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lilypond.png' alt='lilypond'></a>
5052 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lmms'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lmms.png' alt='lmms'></a>
5053 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rosegarden'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rosegarden.png' alt='rosegarden'></a>
5054 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scribus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scribus.png' alt='scribus'></a>
5055 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=solfege'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/solfege.png' alt='solfege'></a>
5056 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stopmotion'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stopmotion.png' alt='stopmotion'></a>
5057 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxpaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxpaint.png' alt='tuxpaint'></a>
5058 </p>
5059
5060 <p><strong>field::astronomy</strong></p>
5061 <p>
5062 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=celestia-gnome'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/celestia-gnome.png' alt='celestia-gnome'></a>
5063 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpredict'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gpredict.png' alt='gpredict'></a>
5064 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kstars'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kstars.png' alt='kstars'></a>
5065 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=planets'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/planets.png' alt='planets'></a>
5066 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stellarium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stellarium.png' alt='stellarium'></a>
5067 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
5068 </p>
5069
5070 <p><strong>field::biology:structural</strong></p>
5071 <p>
5072 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
5073 </p>
5074
5075 <p><strong>field::chemistry</strong></p>
5076 <p>
5077 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=atomix'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/atomix.png' alt='atomix'></a>
5078 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=chemtool'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/chemtool.png' alt='chemtool'></a>
5079 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=easychem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/easychem.png' alt='easychem'></a>
5080 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gchempaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gchempaint.png' alt='gchempaint'></a>
5081 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gdis'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gdis.png' alt='gdis'></a>
5082 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ghemical'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ghemical.png' alt='ghemical'></a>
5083 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gperiodic'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gperiodic.png' alt='gperiodic'></a>
5084 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalzium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalzium.png' alt='kalzium'></a>
5085 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
5086 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=viewmol'>[viewmol]</a>
5087 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xdrawchem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xdrawchem.png' alt='xdrawchem'></a>
5088 </p>
5089
5090 <p><strong>field::electronics</strong></p>
5091 <p>
5092 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
5093 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpsim'>[gpsim]</a>
5094 </p>
5095
5096 <p><strong>field::geography</strong></p>
5097 <p>
5098 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kgeography'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kgeography.png' alt='kgeography'></a>
5099 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=marble'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/marble.png' alt='marble'></a>
5100 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
5101 </p>
5102
5103 <p><strong>field::linguistics</strong></p>
5104 <p>
5105 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
5106 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kanagram'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kanagram.png' alt='kanagram'></a>
5107 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=khangman'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/khangman.png' alt='khangman'></a>
5108 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=klettres'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/klettres.png' alt='klettres'></a>
5109 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=parley'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/parley.png' alt='parley'></a>
5110 </p>
5111
5112 <p><strong>field::mathematics</strong></p>
5113 <p>
5114 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
5115 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=drgeo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/drgeo.png' alt='drgeo'></a>
5116 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
5117 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geogebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/geogebra.png' alt='geogebra'></a>
5118 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geomview'>[geomview]</a>
5119 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=grace'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/grace.png' alt='grace'></a>
5120 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphmonkey'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphmonkey.png' alt='graphmonkey'></a>
5121 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphthing'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphthing.png' alt='graphthing'></a>
5122 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalgebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalgebra.png' alt='kalgebra'></a>
5123 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kbruch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kbruch.png' alt='kbruch'></a>
5124 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kig'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kig.png' alt='kig'></a>
5125 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kmplot'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kmplot.png' alt='kmplot'></a>
5126 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=mathwar'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/mathwar.png' alt='mathwar'></a>
5127 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rocs'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rocs.png' alt='rocs'></a>
5128 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
5129 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxmath'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxmath.png' alt='tuxmath'></a>
5130 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xabacus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xabacus.png' alt='xabacus'></a>
5131 </p>
5132
5133 <p><strong>field::physics</strong></p>
5134 <p>
5135 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
5136 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=step'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/step.png' alt='step'></a>
5137 </p>
5138
5139 <p><strong>field::TODO</strong></p>
5140 <p>
5141 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=blinken'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/blinken.png' alt='blinken'></a>
5142 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=cgoban'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/cgoban.png' alt='cgoban'></a>
5143 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
5144 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
5145 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnuchess'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnuchess.png' alt='gnuchess'></a>
5146 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnugo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnugo.png' alt='gnugo'></a>
5147 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gtans'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gtans.png' alt='gtans'></a>
5148 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ktouch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ktouch.png' alt='ktouch'></a>
5149 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=librecad'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/librecad.png' alt='librecad'></a>
5150 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
5151 </p>
5152
5153 <p>In total, 61 applications.  3 of them lacked screen shots on
5154 <a href="http://screenshot.debian.net">screenshot.debian.net</a>.  If
5155 you know of some packages we should install by default, please let us
5156 know on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu
5157 on irc.debian.org</a>, or our
5158 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">mailing list
5159 debian-edu@</a>.</p>
5160
5161       </div>
5162       <div class="tags">
5163
5164
5165         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5166
5167
5168       </div>
5169     </div>
5170     <div class="padding"></div>
5171
5172     <div class="entry">
5173       <div class="title">
5174         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
5175       </div>
5176       <div class="date">
5177         27th May 2013
5178       </div>
5179       <div class="body">
5180         <p>Two days ago, I asked
5181 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
5182 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
5183 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
5184 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
5185 and Windows 8.</p>
5186
5187 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
5188 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
5189 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
5190 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
5191 enough to tell.</p>
5192
5193 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
5194 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
5195 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
5196 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
5197 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
5198 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
5199 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
5200 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
5201 to follow.</p>
5202
5203 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
5204 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
5205 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
5206 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
5207 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
5208 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
5209 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
5210 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
5211
5212 <p>I've updated the
5213 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
5214 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
5215 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
5216 machine.</p>
5217
5218 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
5219 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
5220
5221       </div>
5222       <div class="tags">
5223
5224
5225         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>.
5226
5227
5228       </div>
5229     </div>
5230     <div class="padding"></div>
5231
5232     <div class="entry">
5233       <div class="title">
5234         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
5235       </div>
5236       <div class="date">
5237         25th May 2013
5238       </div>
5239       <div class="body">
5240         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
5241 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
5242 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
5243 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
5244 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
5245 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
5246
5247 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
5248 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
5249 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
5250 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
5251 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
5252 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
5253 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
5254 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
5255 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
5256 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
5257
5258 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
5259 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
5260 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
5261 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
5262 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
5263 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
5264
5265 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
5266 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
5267 on new Laptops?</p>
5268
5269       </div>
5270       <div class="tags">
5271
5272
5273         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>.
5274
5275
5276       </div>
5277     </div>
5278     <div class="padding"></div>
5279
5280     <div class="entry">
5281       <div class="title">
5282         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
5283       </div>
5284       <div class="date">
5285         17th May 2013
5286       </div>
5287       <div class="body">
5288         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
5289 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
5290 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
5291 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
5292 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
5293 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
5294 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
5295 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
5296 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
5297 donate some money</a>.
5298
5299 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
5300 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
5301 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
5302 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
5303 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
5304
5305 <p>The script,
5306 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
5307 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
5308 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
5309 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
5310
5311 <ol>
5312
5313 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
5314 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
5315 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
5316     our configuration.</li>
5317 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
5318     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
5319     according to the profile specified in the config above,
5320     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
5321 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
5322     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
5323 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
5324
5325 </ol>
5326
5327 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
5328 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
5329 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
5330 the needed packages.</p>
5331
5332 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
5333 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
5334 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
5335 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
5336 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
5337 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
5338
5339 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
5340 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
5341 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
5342
5343 <p><pre>
5344 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
5345 DESKTOP="lxde"
5346 </pre></p>
5347
5348 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
5349 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
5350 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
5351 boot.</p>
5352
5353       </div>
5354       <div class="tags">
5355
5356
5357         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>.
5358
5359
5360       </div>
5361     </div>
5362     <div class="padding"></div>
5363
5364     <div class="entry">
5365       <div class="title">
5366         <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>
5367       </div>
5368       <div class="date">
5369         14th May 2013
5370       </div>
5371       <div class="body">
5372         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5373 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
5374 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
5375
5376 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
5377 2013-05-14</strong></p>
5378
5379 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
5380 alpha1, based on <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
5381 codename "Wheezy".</p>
5382
5383 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
5384
5385 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
5386 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
5387 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
5388 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
5389 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
5390 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
5391 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
5392 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
5393
5394 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
5395 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
5396 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
5397
5398 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
5399 <ul>
5400   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
5401     default.</li>
5402   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
5403   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
5404   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
5405     ibus-anthy.</li>
5406 </ul>
5407
5408 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
5409 <ul>
5410
5411   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
5412     reliability improvements.</li>
5413   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
5414     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
5415   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
5416     problems.</li>
5417   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
5418     direct:// URL.</li>
5419   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
5420   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
5421   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
5422   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
5423     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
5424   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
5425     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
5426 </ul>
5427
5428 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
5429 <ul>
5430
5431   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
5432     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
5433     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
5434   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
5435   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
5436     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
5437   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
5438   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
5439   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
5440     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
5441   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
5442     password submission problem
5443     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
5444
5445 </ul>
5446
5447 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
5448
5449 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
5450 <ul>
5451
5452   <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>
5453   <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>
5454   <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>
5455
5456 </ul>
5457
5458 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
5459
5460 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
5461
5462 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
5463
5464 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
5465
5466       </div>
5467       <div class="tags">
5468
5469
5470         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5471
5472
5473       </div>
5474     </div>
5475     <div class="padding"></div>
5476
5477     <div class="entry">
5478       <div class="title">
5479         <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>
5480       </div>
5481       <div class="date">
5482         11th May 2013
5483       </div>
5484       <div class="body">
5485         <P>In January,
5486 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
5487 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
5488 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
5489 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
5490 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
5491 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
5492 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
5493 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
5494 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
5495 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
5496 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
5497 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
5498
5499 <p><table>
5500 <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>
5501 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
5502 <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>
5503 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
5504 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
5505 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
5506 <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>
5507 <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>
5508 <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>
5509 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
5510 </table></p>
5511
5512 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
5513 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
5514 available in experimental.</p>
5515
5516 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
5517 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
5518 for LEGO designers.</p>
5519
5520       </div>
5521       <div class="tags">
5522
5523
5524         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>.
5525
5526
5527       </div>
5528     </div>
5529     <div class="padding"></div>
5530
5531     <div class="entry">
5532       <div class="title">
5533         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
5534       </div>
5535       <div class="date">
5536          5th May 2013
5537       </div>
5538       <div class="body">
5539         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
5540 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
5541 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
5542 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
5543 soon.</p>
5544
5545 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
5546 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
5547 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
5548 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
5549 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
5550 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
5551 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
5552 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
5553 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
5554 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
5555 Edu.</a>
5556
5557 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
5558 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
5559 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
5560 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
5561 follow.<p>
5562
5563       </div>
5564       <div class="tags">
5565
5566
5567         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>.
5568
5569
5570       </div>
5571     </div>
5572     <div class="padding"></div>
5573
5574     <div class="entry">
5575       <div class="title">
5576         <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>
5577       </div>
5578       <div class="date">
5579         26th April 2013
5580       </div>
5581       <div class="body">
5582         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
5583 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
5584 announcement:</p>
5585
5586 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
5587 2013-04-26</strong></p>
5588
5589 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
5590 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
5591
5592 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
5593
5594 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
5595 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
5596 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
5597 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
5598 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
5599 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
5600 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
5601 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
5602 installed via the network.</p>
5603
5604 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
5605 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
5606 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
5607
5608 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
5609
5610 <ul>
5611 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
5612   <ul>
5613      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
5614      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
5615          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
5616          manual.)</li>
5617      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
5618      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
5619      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
5620      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
5621      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
5622      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
5623      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
5624      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
5625      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
5626      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
5627      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
5628      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
5629          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
5630          manual</a> for more details.</li>
5631      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
5632          installation.</li>
5633      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
5634          <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>
5635   </ul></li>
5636 </ul>
5637
5638 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
5639 <ul>
5640 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
5641     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
5642     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
5643 </ul>
5644
5645 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
5646 <ul>
5647 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
5648     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
5649     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
5650 </ul>
5651
5652 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
5653 <ul>
5654 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
5655     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
5656     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
5657 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
5658     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
5659     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
5660 </ul>
5661
5662 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
5663 <ul>
5664 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
5665     yet.</li>
5666 </ul>
5667
5668 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
5669
5670 <ul>
5671 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
5672     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
5673     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
5674 </ul>
5675
5676 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
5677
5678 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
5679 <ul>
5680 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
5681 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
5682 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
5683 </ul>
5684
5685 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
5686
5687 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
5688
5689 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
5690
5691 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
5692
5693       </div>
5694       <div class="tags">
5695
5696
5697         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5698
5699
5700       </div>
5701     </div>
5702     <div class="padding"></div>
5703
5704     <div class="entry">
5705       <div class="title">
5706         <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>
5707       </div>
5708       <div class="date">
5709         16th April 2013
5710       </div>
5711       <div class="body">
5712         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
5713 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
5714 Details about the gathering can be found
5715 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
5716 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
5717 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
5718 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
5719 weekend.</p>
5720
5721 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
5722 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
5723 Edu release.</p>
5724
5725 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
5726
5727       </div>
5728       <div class="tags">
5729
5730
5731         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5732
5733
5734       </div>
5735     </div>
5736     <div class="padding"></div>
5737
5738     <div class="entry">
5739       <div class="title">
5740         <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>
5741       </div>
5742       <div class="date">
5743          3rd April 2013
5744       </div>
5745       <div class="body">
5746         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
5747 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
5748 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
5749 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
5750
5751 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
5752 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
5753 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
5754 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
5755 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
5756 BTS. :)</p>
5757
5758       </div>
5759       <div class="tags">
5760
5761
5762         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
5763
5764
5765       </div>
5766     </div>
5767     <div class="padding"></div>
5768
5769     <div class="entry">
5770       <div class="title">
5771         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
5772       </div>
5773       <div class="date">
5774         26th March 2013
5775       </div>
5776       <div class="body">
5777         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
5778 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
5779 font you use when printing.</p>
5780
5781 <p>Three years ago,
5782 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
5783 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
5784 changed their default front from
5785 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
5786 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
5787 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
5788 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
5789 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
5790 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
5791 prints.</p>
5792
5793 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
5794 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
5795 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
5796 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
5797 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
5798 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
5799 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
5800 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
5801 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
5802 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
5803 depend on the documents printed.</p>
5804
5805 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
5806 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
5807 and save some money in the process.</p>
5808
5809 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
5810 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
5811 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
5812 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
5813 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
5814 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
5815 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
5816 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
5817 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
5818
5819       </div>
5820       <div class="tags">
5821
5822
5823         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5824
5825
5826       </div>
5827     </div>
5828     <div class="padding"></div>
5829
5830     <div class="entry">
5831       <div class="title">
5832         <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>
5833       </div>
5834       <div class="date">
5835         24th March 2013
5836       </div>
5837       <div class="body">
5838         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
5839 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
5840 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
5841 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
5842 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
5843 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
5844 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
5845 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
5846 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
5847 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
5848 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
5849 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
5850
5851 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
5852 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
5853 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
5854 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
5855 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
5856 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
5857 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
5858 all I had to do was to use the
5859 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
5860 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
5861 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
5862 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
5863 xsltproc/fop (aka
5864 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
5865 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
5866 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
5867 technical detail.</p>
5868
5869 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
5870 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
5871 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
5872 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
5873 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
5874 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
5875
5876 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
5877 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
5878 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
5879 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
5880 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
5881 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
5882 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
5883 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
5884 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
5885
5886 <p><blockquote><pre>
5887 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
5888 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
5889   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
5890     &lt;hr/&gt;
5891   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
5892 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
5893 </pre></blockquote></p>
5894
5895 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
5896
5897 <p><blockquote><pre>
5898 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
5899 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
5900   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
5901     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
5902       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
5903     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
5904   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
5905 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
5906 </pre></blockquote></p>
5907
5908 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
5909 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
5910 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
5911 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
5912 enough.</p>
5913
5914 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
5915 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
5916 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
5917 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
5918 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
5919 look like this:</p>
5920
5921 <p><blockquote><pre>
5922 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
5923 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
5924   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
5925     &lt;br/&gt;
5926   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
5927 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
5928 </pre></blockquote></p>
5929
5930 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
5931
5932 <p><blockquote><pre>
5933 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
5934 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
5935   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
5936   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
5937     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
5938   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
5939 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
5940 </pre></blockquote></p>
5941
5942 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
5943 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
5944 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
5945 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
5946 page.</p>
5947
5948 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
5949 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
5950 github</a>
5951 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
5952 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
5953 days.</p>
5954
5955       </div>
5956       <div class="tags">
5957
5958
5959         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>.
5960
5961
5962       </div>
5963     </div>
5964     <div class="padding"></div>
5965
5966     <div class="entry">
5967       <div class="title">
5968         <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>
5969       </div>
5970       <div class="date">
5971         17th March 2013
5972       </div>
5973       <div class="body">
5974         <p>Via
5975 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
5976 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
5977 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
5978 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
5979 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
5980 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
5981 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
5982
5983 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
5984 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
5985
5986 <blockquote>
5987 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
5988 </blockquote>
5989
5990 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
5991
5992 <blockquote>
5993 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
5994 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
5995 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
5996 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
5997 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
5998 </blockquote>
5999
6000 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
6001 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
6002 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
6003 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
6004
6005 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
6006 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
6007
6008 <blockquote>
6009 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
6010 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
6011 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
6012 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
6013 </blockquote>
6014
6015 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
6016 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
6017 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
6018 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
6019 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
6020
6021 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
6022 embedding:</p>
6023
6024 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
6025
6026       </div>
6027       <div class="tags">
6028
6029
6030         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6031
6032
6033       </div>
6034     </div>
6035     <div class="padding"></div>
6036
6037     <div class="entry">
6038       <div class="title">
6039         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
6040       </div>
6041       <div class="date">
6042          8th March 2013
6043       </div>
6044       <div class="body">
6045         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
6046 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
6047 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
6048 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
6049 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
6050 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
6051 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
6052
6053 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
6054
6055 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
6056 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
6057
6058 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
6059 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
6060 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
6061 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
6062 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
6063 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
6064
6065 <p>Images are available for download at
6066 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
6067
6068 <p>md5sums:
6069 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
6070 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
6071 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
6072
6073 <p>sha1sums:
6074 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
6075 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
6076 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
6077
6078 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
6079
6080 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
6081 2013-03-03:</p>
6082
6083 <ul>
6084   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
6085   <ul>
6086         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
6087         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
6088   </ul></li>
6089   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
6090   <ul>
6091         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
6092         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
6093   </ul></li>
6094   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
6095      <ul>
6096         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
6097         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
6098         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
6099                 Closes: #664596</li>
6100         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
6101                 Closes: #664976</li>
6102         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
6103            <ul>
6104                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
6105                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
6106            </ul></li>
6107         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
6108            <ul>
6109                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
6110                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
6111                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
6112                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
6113                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
6114            </ul></li>
6115         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
6116     </ul>
6117   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
6118     <ul>
6119         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
6120     </ul></li>
6121 </ul>
6122
6123 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
6124 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
6125 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
6126 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
6127
6128 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
6129 mailinglist
6130 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
6131 </p></blockquote>
6132
6133 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
6134
6135       </div>
6136       <div class="tags">
6137
6138
6139         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6140
6141
6142       </div>
6143     </div>
6144     <div class="padding"></div>
6145
6146     <div class="entry">
6147       <div class="title">
6148         <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>
6149       </div>
6150       <div class="date">
6151          3rd March 2013
6152       </div>
6153       <div class="body">
6154         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
6155 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
6156 support using
6157 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
6158 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
6159 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
6160 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
6161 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
6162 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
6163 using the GNU LGPL, and
6164 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
6165
6166 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
6167 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
6168 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
6169 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
6170 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
6171 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
6172
6173 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
6174 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
6175 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
6176 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
6177 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
6178 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
6179 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
6180 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
6181 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
6182 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
6183 signal distribution is handled using
6184 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
6185 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
6186 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
6187 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
6188 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
6189 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
6190 them up a bit more first.</p>
6191
6192 <p>The development is coordinated on the
6193 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
6194 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
6195 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
6196 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
6197 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
6198 development.</p>
6199
6200       </div>
6201       <div class="tags">
6202
6203
6204         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>.
6205
6206
6207       </div>
6208     </div>
6209     <div class="padding"></div>
6210
6211     <div class="entry">
6212       <div class="title">
6213         <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>
6214       </div>
6215       <div class="date">
6216         27th February 2013
6217       </div>
6218       <div class="body">
6219         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
6220 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
6221 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
6222 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
6223 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
6224 (where I am the chair of the board) and
6225 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
6226 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
6227 GNU», with this description:
6228
6229 <p><blockquote>
6230 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
6231 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
6232 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
6233 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
6234 </blockquote></p>
6235
6236 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
6237 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
6238 am really curious how many will show up.  See
6239 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
6240 page</a> for the location details.</p>
6241
6242       </div>
6243       <div class="tags">
6244
6245
6246         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>.
6247
6248
6249       </div>
6250     </div>
6251     <div class="padding"></div>
6252
6253     <div class="entry">
6254       <div class="title">
6255         <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>
6256       </div>
6257       <div class="date">
6258         15th February 2013
6259       </div>
6260       <div class="body">
6261         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
6262 now a great source of free maps available from
6263 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
6264 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
6265 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
6266 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
6267 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
6268 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
6269 page for descriptions).</p>
6270
6271 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
6272 map you can just edit the
6273 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
6274 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
6275
6276       </div>
6277       <div class="tags">
6278
6279
6280         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>.
6281
6282
6283       </div>
6284     </div>
6285     <div class="padding"></div>
6286
6287     <div class="entry">
6288       <div class="title">
6289         <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>
6290       </div>
6291       <div class="date">
6292         12th February 2013
6293       </div>
6294       <div class="body">
6295         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
6296 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
6297 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
6298 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
6299 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
6300 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
6301 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
6302 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
6303 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
6304 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
6305 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
6306 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
6307 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
6308 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
6309 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
6310 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
6311
6312 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
6313 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
6314 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
6315 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
6316 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
6317 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
6318 fields:</p>
6319
6320 <p><pre>
6321 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
6322 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
6323 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
6324 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
6325 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
6326 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
6327 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
6328 </pre></p>
6329
6330 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
6331 answer regarding
6332 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
6333 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
6334 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
6335 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
6336
6337 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
6338
6339 <p><pre>
6340 BEGIN:VCARD
6341 VERSION:2.1
6342 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
6343 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
6344 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
6345 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
6346 REV:20130212T095000Z
6347 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
6348 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
6349 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
6350 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
6351 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
6352 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
6353 END:VCARD
6354 </pre></p>
6355
6356 <p>The resulting QR code created using
6357 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
6358 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
6359 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
6360 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
6361 system.</p>
6362
6363 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
6364
6365 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
6366 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
6367 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
6368 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
6369
6370 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
6371 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
6372
6373       </div>
6374       <div class="tags">
6375
6376
6377         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>.
6378
6379
6380       </div>
6381     </div>
6382     <div class="padding"></div>
6383
6384     <div class="entry">
6385       <div class="title">
6386         <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>
6387       </div>
6388       <div class="date">
6389         10th February 2013
6390       </div>
6391       <div class="body">
6392         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
6393
6394 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
6395 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
6396 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
6397 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
6398 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
6399 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
6400 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
6401 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
6402 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
6403 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
6404 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
6405
6406 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
6407 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
6408 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
6409 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
6410 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
6411 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
6412 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
6413 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
6414 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
6415 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
6416 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
6417 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
6418 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
6419 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
6420 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
6421 ones own
6422 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
6423 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
6424 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
6425 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
6426 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
6427 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
6428 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
6429 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
6430 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
6431 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
6432 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
6433
6434 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
6435 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
6436 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
6437 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
6438 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
6439 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
6440
6441 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
6442 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
6443 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
6444
6445       </div>
6446       <div class="tags">
6447
6448
6449         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6450
6451
6452       </div>
6453     </div>
6454     <div class="padding"></div>
6455
6456     <div class="entry">
6457       <div class="title">
6458         <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>
6459       </div>
6460       <div class="date">
6461          2nd February 2013
6462       </div>
6463       <div class="body">
6464         <p>My
6465 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
6466 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
6467 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
6468 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
6469 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
6470 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
6471 version too.</p>
6472
6473 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
6474 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
6475 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
6476 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
6477 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
6478 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
6479 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
6480 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
6481
6482 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
6483 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
6484 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
6485 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
6486 it. :)</p>
6487
6488 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6489 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6490 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6491
6492       </div>
6493       <div class="tags">
6494
6495
6496         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>.
6497
6498
6499       </div>
6500     </div>
6501     <div class="padding"></div>
6502
6503     <div class="entry">
6504       <div class="title">
6505         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
6506       </div>
6507       <div class="date">
6508         22nd January 2013
6509       </div>
6510       <div class="body">
6511         <p>Yesterday, I
6512 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
6513 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
6514 pluggable hardware devices, which I
6515 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
6516 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
6517 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
6518 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
6519 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
6520 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
6521 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
6522 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
6523 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
6524 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
6525
6526 <pre>
6527 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
6528 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
6529 </pre>
6530
6531 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
6532 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
6533 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
6534 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
6535
6536 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
6537 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
6538 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
6539 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
6540 word.</p>
6541
6542 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
6543 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
6544 process.</p>
6545
6546 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
6547 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
6548
6549       </div>
6550       <div class="tags">
6551
6552
6553         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>.
6554
6555
6556       </div>
6557     </div>
6558     <div class="padding"></div>
6559
6560     <div class="entry">
6561       <div class="title">
6562         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
6563       </div>
6564       <div class="date">
6565         21st January 2013
6566       </div>
6567       <div class="body">
6568         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
6569 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
6570 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
6571 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
6572 it, fetch the
6573 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
6574 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
6575 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
6576 autostart script.</p>
6577
6578 <p>The design is simple:</p>
6579
6580 <ul>
6581
6582 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
6583 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
6584
6585 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
6586 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
6587 initially did.</li>
6588
6589 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
6590 the APT database, a database
6591 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
6592 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
6593
6594 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
6595 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
6596 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
6597 package or packages.</li>
6598
6599 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
6600 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
6601
6602 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
6603 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
6604
6605 </ul>
6606
6607 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
6608 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
6609 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
6610 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
6611
6612 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
6613 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
6614 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
6615 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
6616 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
6617
6618 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
6619 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
6620 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
6621 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
6622 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
6623 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
6624 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
6625 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
6626
6627 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
6628 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
6629 '<tt>svn checkout
6630 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
6631 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
6632 devscripts package.</p>
6633
6634 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
6635 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
6636 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
6637 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
6638 instructions</a> for details.</p>
6639
6640       </div>
6641       <div class="tags">
6642
6643
6644         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>.
6645
6646
6647       </div>
6648     </div>
6649     <div class="padding"></div>
6650
6651     <div class="entry">
6652       <div class="title">
6653         <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>
6654       </div>
6655       <div class="date">
6656         19th January 2013
6657       </div>
6658       <div class="body">
6659         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
6660 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
6661 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
6662 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
6663 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
6664 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
6665 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
6666 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
6667 not a durable solution.
6668
6669 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
6670 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
6671
6672 <ul>
6673
6674 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
6675   than A4).</li>
6676 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
6677 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
6678 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
6679 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
6680 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
6681 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
6682 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
6683 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
6684 size).</li>
6685 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
6686   X.org packages.</li>
6687 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
6688   the time).
6689
6690 </ul>
6691
6692 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
6693 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
6694 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
6695 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
6696 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
6697 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
6698 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
6699 still be useful.</p>
6700
6701 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
6702 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
6703 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
6704 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
6705 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
6706 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
6707
6708       </div>
6709       <div class="tags">
6710
6711
6712         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>.
6713
6714
6715       </div>
6716     </div>
6717     <div class="padding"></div>
6718
6719     <div class="entry">
6720       <div class="title">
6721         <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>
6722       </div>
6723       <div class="date">
6724         18th January 2013
6725       </div>
6726       <div class="body">
6727         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
6728 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
6729 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
6730 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
6731 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
6732 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
6733 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
6734
6735 <pre>
6736 #!/usr/bin/python
6737 import sys
6738 import apt
6739 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
6740     cache = apt.Cache()
6741     cache.open(None)
6742     thepkgs = []
6743     for pkg in cache:
6744         version = pkg.candidate
6745         if version is None:
6746             version = pkg.installed
6747         if version is None:
6748             continue
6749         record = version.record
6750         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
6751             continue
6752         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
6753         for t in mime_types:
6754             t = t.rstrip().strip()
6755             if t == mimetype:
6756                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
6757     return thepkgs
6758 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
6759 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
6760     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
6761 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
6762 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
6763     print "  %s" %pkg
6764 </pre>
6765
6766 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
6767
6768 <pre>
6769 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
6770 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
6771   gecko-mediaplayer
6772 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
6773 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
6774   browser-plugin-gnash
6775 %
6776 </pre>
6777
6778 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
6779 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
6780 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
6781 anyone working on adding it?</p>
6782
6783 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
6784 request for icweasel support for this feature is
6785 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
6786 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
6787 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
6788 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
6789
6790       </div>
6791       <div class="tags">
6792
6793
6794         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>.
6795
6796
6797       </div>
6798     </div>
6799     <div class="padding"></div>
6800
6801     <div class="entry">
6802       <div class="title">
6803         <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>
6804       </div>
6805       <div class="date">
6806         16th January 2013
6807       </div>
6808       <div class="body">
6809         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
6810 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
6811 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
6812 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
6813 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
6814 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
6815 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
6816 downloaded by the browser.</p>
6817
6818 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
6819 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
6820 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
6821 can be found on the
6822 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
6823 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
6824 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
6825 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
6826 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
6827
6828 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
6829
6830 <pre>
6831   count MIME type
6832   ----- -----------------------
6833      32 text/plain
6834      30 audio/mpeg
6835      29 image/png
6836      28 image/jpeg
6837      27 application/ogg
6838      26 audio/x-mp3
6839      25 image/tiff
6840      25 image/gif
6841      22 image/bmp
6842      22 audio/x-wav
6843      20 audio/x-flac
6844      19 audio/x-mpegurl
6845      18 video/x-ms-asf
6846      18 audio/x-musepack
6847      18 audio/x-mpeg
6848      18 application/x-ogg
6849      17 video/mpeg
6850      17 audio/x-scpls
6851      17 audio/ogg
6852      16 video/x-ms-wmv
6853 </pre>
6854
6855 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
6856
6857 <pre>
6858   count MIME type
6859   ----- -----------------------
6860      33 text/plain
6861      32 image/png
6862      32 image/jpeg
6863      29 audio/mpeg
6864      27 image/gif
6865      26 image/tiff
6866      26 application/ogg
6867      25 audio/x-mp3
6868      22 image/bmp
6869      21 audio/x-wav
6870      19 audio/x-mpegurl
6871      19 audio/x-mpeg
6872      18 video/mpeg
6873      18 audio/x-scpls
6874      18 audio/x-flac
6875      18 application/x-ogg
6876      17 video/x-ms-asf
6877      17 text/html
6878      17 audio/x-musepack
6879      16 image/x-xbitmap
6880 </pre>
6881
6882 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
6883
6884 <pre>
6885   count MIME type
6886   ----- -----------------------
6887      31 text/plain
6888      31 image/png
6889      31 image/jpeg
6890      29 audio/mpeg
6891      28 application/ogg
6892      27 image/gif
6893      26 image/tiff
6894      26 audio/x-mp3
6895      23 audio/x-wav
6896      22 image/bmp
6897      21 audio/x-flac
6898      20 audio/x-mpegurl
6899      19 audio/x-mpeg
6900      18 video/x-ms-asf
6901      18 video/mpeg
6902      18 audio/x-scpls
6903      18 application/x-ogg
6904      17 audio/x-musepack
6905      16 video/x-ms-wmv
6906      16 video/x-msvideo
6907 </pre>
6908
6909 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
6910 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
6911 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
6912 issues.</p>
6913
6914 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
6915 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
6916
6917       </div>
6918       <div class="tags">
6919
6920
6921         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>.
6922
6923
6924       </div>
6925     </div>
6926     <div class="padding"></div>
6927
6928     <div class="entry">
6929       <div class="title">
6930         <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>
6931       </div>
6932       <div class="date">
6933         15th January 2013
6934       </div>
6935       <div class="body">
6936         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
6937 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
6938 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
6939 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
6940 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
6941 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
6942 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
6943 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
6944 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
6945 packages.</p>
6946
6947 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
6948 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
6949 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
6950 modalias.</p>
6951
6952 <p><blockquote>
6953 Package: package-name
6954 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
6955 </blockquote></p>
6956
6957 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
6958 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
6959
6960 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
6961 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
6962
6963 <p><blockquote>
6964 Package: cheese
6965 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
6966 </blockquote></p>
6967
6968 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
6969 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
6970
6971 <p><blockquote>
6972 Package: pcmciautils
6973 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
6974 </blockquote></p>
6975
6976 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
6977 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
6978
6979 <p><blockquote>
6980 Package: colorhug-client
6981 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
6982 </blockquote></p>
6983
6984 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
6985 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
6986 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
6987
6988 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
6989 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
6990 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
6991 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
6992 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
6993 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
6994 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
6995 Raring.</p>
6996
6997 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
6998 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
6999 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
7000 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
7001 try the
7002 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
7003 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
7004 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
7005 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
7006
7007 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
7008 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
7009
7010 <p><blockquote>
7011 % ./hw-support-lookup
7012 <br>yubikey-personalization
7013 <br>%
7014 </blockquote></p>
7015
7016 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
7017 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
7018
7019 <p><blockquote>
7020 % ./hw-support-lookup
7021 <br>pcmciautils
7022 <br>%
7023 </blockquote></p>
7024
7025 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
7026 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
7027 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
7028
7029 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
7030 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
7031 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
7032 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
7033 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
7034 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
7035 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
7036 see if it work.</p>
7037
7038 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
7039 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
7040 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
7041 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
7042
7043       </div>
7044       <div class="tags">
7045
7046
7047         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>.
7048
7049
7050       </div>
7051     </div>
7052     <div class="padding"></div>
7053
7054     <div class="entry">
7055       <div class="title">
7056         <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>
7057       </div>
7058       <div class="date">
7059         14th January 2013
7060       </div>
7061       <div class="body">
7062         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
7063 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
7064 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
7065 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
7066 in
7067 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
7068 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
7069
7070 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
7071
7072 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
7073 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
7074 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
7075 &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;,
7076 &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
7077 &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;.
7078
7079 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
7080 this shell script:</p>
7081
7082 <pre>
7083 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
7084 </pre>
7085
7086 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
7087 using modinfo:</p>
7088
7089 <pre>
7090 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
7091 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
7092 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
7093 %
7094 </pre>
7095
7096 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
7097
7098 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
7099 Bridge memory controller:</p>
7100
7101 <p><blockquote>
7102 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
7103 </blockquote></p>
7104
7105 <p>This represent these values:</p>
7106
7107 <pre>
7108  v   00008086  (vendor)
7109  d   00002770  (device)
7110  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
7111  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
7112  bc  06        (bus class)
7113  sc  00        (bus subclass)
7114  i   00        (interface)
7115 </pre>
7116
7117 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
7118 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
7119 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
7120 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
7121
7122 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
7123 means.</p>
7124
7125 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
7126
7127 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
7128 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
7129
7130 <p><blockquote>
7131 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
7132 </blockquote></p>
7133
7134 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
7135
7136 <pre>
7137  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
7138  p    0001  (device product)
7139  d    0206  (bcddevice)
7140  dc     09  (device class)
7141  dsc    00  (device subclass)
7142  dp     00  (device protocol)
7143  ic     09  (interface class)
7144  isc    00  (interface subclass)
7145  ip     00  (interface protocol)
7146 </pre>
7147
7148 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
7149 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
7150 these alias entries show up:</p>
7151
7152 <p><blockquote>
7153 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
7154 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
7155 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
7156 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
7157 </blockquote></p>
7158
7159 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
7160 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
7161 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
7162
7163 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
7164
7165 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
7166 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
7167
7168 <p><blockquote>
7169 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
7170 </blockquote></p>
7171
7172 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
7173
7174 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
7175
7176 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
7177 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
7178 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
7179
7180 <p><blockquote>
7181 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
7182 </blockquote></p>
7183
7184 <p>The values present are</p>
7185
7186 <pre>
7187  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
7188  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
7189  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
7190  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
7191  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
7192  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
7193  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
7194  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
7195  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
7196  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
7197  ct   10             (chassis type)
7198  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
7199 </pre>
7200
7201 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
7202 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
7203
7204 <pre>
7205   3 Desktop
7206   4 Low Profile Desktop
7207   5 Pizza Box
7208   6 Mini Tower
7209   7 Tower
7210   8 Portable
7211   9 Laptop
7212  10 Notebook
7213  11 Hand Held
7214  12 Docking Station
7215  13 All In One
7216  14 Sub Notebook
7217  15 Space-saving
7218  16 Lunch Box
7219  17 Main Server Chassis
7220  18 Expansion Chassis
7221  19 Sub Chassis
7222  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
7223  21 Peripheral Chassis
7224  22 RAID Chassis
7225  23 Rack Mount Chassis
7226  24 Sealed-case PC
7227  25 Multi-system
7228  26 CompactPCI
7229  27 AdvancedTCA
7230  28 Blade
7231  29 Blade Enclosing
7232 </pre>
7233
7234 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
7235 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
7236 claim it is a desktop.</p>
7237
7238 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
7239
7240 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
7241 test machine:</p>
7242
7243 <p><blockquote>
7244 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
7245 </blockquote></p>
7246
7247 <p>The values present are</p>
7248
7249 <pre>
7250   ty  01  (type)
7251   pr  00  (prototype)
7252   id  00  (id)
7253   ex  00  (extra)
7254 </pre>
7255
7256 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
7257 the valid values are.</p>
7258
7259 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
7260
7261 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
7262 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
7263 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
7264 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
7265 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
7266 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
7267 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
7268
7269 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
7270
7271 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
7272 one can use the following shell script:</p>
7273
7274 <pre>
7275   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
7276     echo "$id" ; \
7277     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
7278   done
7279 </pre>
7280
7281 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
7282 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
7283
7284 <pre>
7285   acpi:ACPI0003:
7286     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
7287   acpi:device:
7288   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
7289   acpi:IBM0068:
7290     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
7291     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
7292     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
7293     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
7294   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
7295     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
7296     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
7297     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
7298   [...]
7299 </pre>
7300
7301 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
7302 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
7303 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
7304 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
7305
7306 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
7307 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
7308 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
7309
7310       </div>
7311       <div class="tags">
7312
7313
7314         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>.
7315
7316
7317       </div>
7318     </div>
7319     <div class="padding"></div>
7320
7321     <div class="entry">
7322       <div class="title">
7323         <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>
7324       </div>
7325       <div class="date">
7326         10th January 2013
7327       </div>
7328       <div class="body">
7329         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
7330 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
7331 Launcher and updated the Debian package
7332 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
7333 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
7334 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
7335 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
7336 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
7337 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
7338 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
7339 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
7340 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
7341 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
7342 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
7343 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
7344 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
7345 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
7346 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
7347
7348       </div>
7349       <div class="tags">
7350
7351
7352         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
7353
7354
7355       </div>
7356     </div>
7357     <div class="padding"></div>
7358
7359     <div class="entry">
7360       <div class="title">
7361         <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>
7362       </div>
7363       <div class="date">
7364          9th January 2013
7365       </div>
7366       <div class="body">
7367         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
7368 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
7369 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
7370 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
7371 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
7372 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
7373 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
7374 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
7375 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
7376 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
7377 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
7378
7379 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
7380 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
7381 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
7382 simple:
7383
7384 <ul>
7385
7386 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
7387   starting when a user log in.</li>
7388
7389 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
7390   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
7391
7392 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
7393   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
7394   packages.</li>
7395
7396 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
7397   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
7398
7399 </ul>
7400
7401 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
7402 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
7403 discover database to find packages and
7404 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
7405 packages.</p>
7406
7407 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
7408 draft package is now checked into
7409 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
7410 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
7411 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
7412 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
7413 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
7414 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
7415 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
7416 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
7417 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
7418 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
7419 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
7420 because of the freeze).</p>
7421
7422 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
7423 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
7424 inserted):</p>
7425
7426 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
7427
7428 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
7429 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
7430 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
7431
7432 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
7433 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
7434 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
7435 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
7436 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
7437 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
7438 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
7439
7440 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
7441 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
7442 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
7443 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
7444 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
7445 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
7446 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
7447 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
7448 not be installed?</p>
7449
7450 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
7451 please send me an email. :)</p>
7452
7453       </div>
7454       <div class="tags">
7455
7456
7457         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>.
7458
7459
7460       </div>
7461     </div>
7462     <div class="padding"></div>
7463
7464     <div class="entry">
7465       <div class="title">
7466         <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>
7467       </div>
7468       <div class="date">
7469          2nd January 2013
7470       </div>
7471       <div class="body">
7472         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
7473 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
7474 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
7475 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
7476 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
7477 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
7478 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
7479 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
7480 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
7481 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
7482
7483 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
7484 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
7485 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
7486
7487       </div>
7488       <div class="tags">
7489
7490
7491         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>.
7492
7493
7494       </div>
7495     </div>
7496     <div class="padding"></div>
7497
7498     <div class="entry">
7499       <div class="title">
7500         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
7501       </div>
7502       <div class="date">
7503         28th December 2012
7504       </div>
7505       <div class="body">
7506         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
7507 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
7508 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
7509 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
7510 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
7511 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
7512 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
7513 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
7514 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
7515 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
7516 followed by many others. :)</p>
7517
7518 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
7519 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
7520 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
7521 you want to donate to the project.</p>
7522
7523       </div>
7524       <div class="tags">
7525
7526
7527         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7528
7529
7530       </div>
7531     </div>
7532     <div class="padding"></div>
7533
7534     <div class="entry">
7535       <div class="title">
7536         <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>
7537       </div>
7538       <div class="date">
7539         25th December 2012
7540       </div>
7541       <div class="body">
7542         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
7543 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
7544
7545 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
7546 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
7547 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
7548 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
7549 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
7550 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
7551 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
7552 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
7553 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
7554 name.</p>
7555
7556 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
7557 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
7558 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
7559
7560 <blockquote><pre>
7561 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
7562 cd bitcoin
7563 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
7564 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
7565 </pre></blockquote>
7566
7567 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
7568 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
7569 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
7570 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
7571 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
7572 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
7573 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
7574 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
7575 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
7576
7577 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
7578 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
7579 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
7580
7581       </div>
7582       <div class="tags">
7583
7584
7585         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>.
7586
7587
7588       </div>
7589     </div>
7590     <div class="padding"></div>
7591
7592     <div class="entry">
7593       <div class="title">
7594         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
7595       </div>
7596       <div class="date">
7597         21st December 2012
7598       </div>
7599       <div class="body">
7600         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
7601 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
7602 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
7603 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
7604 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
7605 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
7606 is now maintained by a
7607 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
7608 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
7609 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
7610 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
7611 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
7612 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
7613 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
7614 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
7615 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
7616 Corallo in a
7617 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
7618 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
7619 Debian package.</p>
7620
7621 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
7622 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
7623 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
7624 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
7625 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
7626 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
7627 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
7628 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
7629 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
7630 new version to unstable.
7631
7632 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
7633 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
7634 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
7635 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
7636 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
7637 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
7638 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
7639 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
7640 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
7641 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
7642 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
7643 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
7644 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
7645 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
7646 have not tested them.</p>
7647
7648 <p>My
7649 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
7650 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
7651 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
7652 years ago, as can be
7653 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
7654 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
7655 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
7656 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
7657 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
7658 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
7659 the same address as last time,
7660 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
7661
7662       </div>
7663       <div class="tags">
7664
7665
7666         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>.
7667
7668
7669       </div>
7670     </div>
7671     <div class="padding"></div>
7672
7673     <div class="entry">
7674       <div class="title">
7675         <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>
7676       </div>
7677       <div class="date">
7678         18th December 2012
7679       </div>
7680       <div class="body">
7681         <p>A few days ago I came across
7682 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
7683 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
7684 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
7685 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
7686 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
7687 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
7688 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
7689 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
7690 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
7691
7692 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
7693 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
7694 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
7695 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
7696
7697 <blockquote><pre>
7698 2004-05-27 Book Store
7699       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
7700       Liabilities:Visa
7701 </pre></blockquote>
7702
7703 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
7704 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
7705 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
7706 Spang</a>,
7707 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
7708 Keen</a>,
7709 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
7710 Cantino</a> and
7711 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
7712 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
7713 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
7714 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
7715 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
7716
7717 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
7718 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
7719 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
7720 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
7721 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
7722
7723 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
7724 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
7725 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
7726 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
7727 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
7728 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
7729 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
7730 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
7731 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
7732
7733       </div>
7734       <div class="tags">
7735
7736
7737         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7738
7739
7740       </div>
7741     </div>
7742     <div class="padding"></div>
7743
7744     <div class="entry">
7745       <div class="title">
7746         <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>
7747       </div>
7748       <div class="date">
7749          6th December 2012
7750       </div>
7751       <div class="body">
7752         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
7753 Oslo</a>, we use the
7754 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
7755 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
7756 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
7757 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
7758 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
7759 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
7760 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
7761 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
7762 Python.</p>
7763
7764 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
7765 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
7766 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
7767 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
7768 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
7769 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
7770
7771 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
7772 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
7773 user currently logged in:</p>
7774
7775 <blockquote><pre>
7776 #!/usr/bin/env python
7777 import getpass
7778 import xmlrpclib
7779 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
7780 username = getpass.getuser()
7781 password = getpass.getpass()
7782 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
7783 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
7784 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
7785 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
7786 result = server.logout(sessionid)
7787 print result
7788 </pre></blockquote>
7789
7790 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
7791 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
7792
7793       </div>
7794       <div class="tags">
7795
7796
7797         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>.
7798
7799
7800       </div>
7801     </div>
7802     <div class="padding"></div>
7803
7804     <div class="entry">
7805       <div class="title">
7806         <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>
7807       </div>
7808       <div class="date">
7809         17th November 2012
7810       </div>
7811       <div class="body">
7812         <p>While working on a
7813 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
7814 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
7815 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
7816 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
7817 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
7818 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
7819
7820 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
7821 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
7822 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
7823 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
7824 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
7825 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
7826 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
7827 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
7828 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
7829 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
7830 arguments.</p>
7831
7832 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
7833 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
7834 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
7835 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
7836 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
7837 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
7838 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
7839 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
7840
7841 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
7842 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
7843 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
7844 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
7845 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
7846 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
7847 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
7848 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
7849 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
7850 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
7851 correct right holder.</p>
7852
7853 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
7854 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
7855 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
7856 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
7857 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
7858 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
7859 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
7860 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
7861 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
7862 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
7863 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
7864 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
7865 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
7866 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
7867
7868 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
7869 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
7870 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
7871
7872 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
7873 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
7874
7875       </div>
7876       <div class="tags">
7877
7878
7879         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>.
7880
7881
7882       </div>
7883     </div>
7884     <div class="padding"></div>
7885
7886     <div class="entry">
7887       <div class="title">
7888         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
7889       </div>
7890       <div class="date">
7891         14th November 2012
7892       </div>
7893       <div class="body">
7894         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
7895 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
7896 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
7897 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
7898 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
7899 the people behind the German
7900 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
7901 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
7902 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
7903
7904 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7905
7906 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
7907 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
7908 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
7909
7910 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
7911 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
7912 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
7913 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
7914 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
7915 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
7916
7917 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
7918 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
7919 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
7920 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
7921 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
7922 relationship management and the communication processes in the
7923 project.</p>
7924
7925 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
7926 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
7927 and a yoga teacher.</p>
7928
7929 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
7930 project?</strong></p>
7931
7932 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
7933
7934 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
7935 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
7936 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
7937 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
7938 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
7939 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
7940 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
7941 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
7942 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
7943 parents.</p>
7944
7945 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
7946 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
7947 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
7948 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
7949 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
7950 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
7951 Germany.</p>
7952
7953 <p>For information about our school project you can read
7954 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
7955 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
7956
7957 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
7958 Edu?</strong></p>
7959
7960 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
7961 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
7962
7963 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
7964 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
7965 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
7966 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
7967 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
7968 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
7969 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
7970 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
7971 teachers, parents...</p>
7972
7973 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
7974 Edu?</strong></p>
7975
7976 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
7977 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
7978
7979 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
7980 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
7981 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
7982 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
7983 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
7984
7985 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
7986 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
7987 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
7988 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
7989 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
7990 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
7991 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
7992
7993 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7994
7995 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
7996 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
7997 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
7998 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
7999
8000 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8001 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8002
8003 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
8004 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
8005 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
8006 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
8007 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
8008
8009 <ul>
8010
8011 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
8012 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
8013 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
8014
8015 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
8016 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
8017 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
8018 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
8019 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
8020 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
8021 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
8022
8023 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
8024 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
8025 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
8026 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
8027
8028 </ul>
8029
8030       </div>
8031       <div class="tags">
8032
8033
8034         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
8035
8036
8037       </div>
8038     </div>
8039     <div class="padding"></div>
8040
8041     <div class="entry">
8042       <div class="title">
8043         <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>
8044       </div>
8045       <div class="date">
8046          4th November 2012
8047       </div>
8048       <div class="body">
8049         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
8050 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
8051 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
8052 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
8053 see how a member of the bitcoin community
8054 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
8055 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
8056 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
8057 competition.  My thoughts go to the
8058 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
8059 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
8060 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
8061 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
8062 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
8063
8064 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
8065 that the community already seem to have
8066 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
8067 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
8068 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
8069 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
8070 wealth is available.</p>
8071
8072       </div>
8073       <div class="tags">
8074
8075
8076         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>.
8077
8078
8079       </div>
8080     </div>
8081     <div class="padding"></div>
8082
8083     <div class="entry">
8084       <div class="title">
8085         <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>
8086       </div>
8087       <div class="date">
8088         26th October 2012
8089       </div>
8090       <div class="body">
8091         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
8092 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
8093 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
8094 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
8095 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
8096 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
8097 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
8098 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
8099 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
8100 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
8101 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
8102 it every time.</p>
8103
8104 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
8105 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
8106 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
8107 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
8108 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
8109 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
8110 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
8111 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
8112 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
8113 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
8114 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
8115 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
8116
8117 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
8118 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
8119 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
8120 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
8121 article: First the unplanned outage:
8122
8123 <blockquote><pre>
8124 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
8125 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
8126 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
8127 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
8128 Duration:    40 minutes
8129 Scope:       Exchange 2003
8130 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
8131              a cluster failover.
8132
8133 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
8134              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
8135 Technician:  [xxx]
8136 </pre></blockquote>
8137
8138 Next the planned outage:
8139
8140 <blockquote><pre>
8141 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
8142 Severity:    Major (Planned)
8143 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
8144 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
8145 Duration:    10 hours
8146 Scope:       H2 Transport
8147 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
8148              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
8149              4510s.
8150 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
8151              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
8152              connectivity.
8153 Technician:  [xxx]
8154 </pre></blockquote>
8155
8156 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
8157 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
8158 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
8159 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
8160 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
8161 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
8162 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
8163
8164 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
8165 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
8166 university too.  We do register
8167 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
8168 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
8169 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
8170 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
8171 for other sites to consider too?</p>
8172
8173       </div>
8174       <div class="tags">
8175
8176
8177         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>.
8178
8179
8180       </div>
8181     </div>
8182     <div class="padding"></div>
8183
8184     <div class="entry">
8185       <div class="title">
8186         <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>
8187       </div>
8188       <div class="date">
8189         22nd October 2012
8190       </div>
8191       <div class="body">
8192         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
8193 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
8194 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
8195 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
8196 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
8197 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
8198 background information is available in Norwegian from
8199 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
8200 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
8201 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
8202 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
8203 willing to
8204 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
8205 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
8206 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
8207 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
8208 sounded like
8209 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
8210 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
8211 later.</p>
8212
8213 <p>And thought this action is
8214 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
8215 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
8216 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
8217 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
8218 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
8219 rights.</p>
8220
8221 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
8222 unacceptable terms.  For example
8223 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
8224 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
8225 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
8226 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
8227 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
8228
8229 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
8230 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
8231 restored the account of the user, as reported by
8232 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
8233 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
8234 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
8235 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
8236 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
8237 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
8238 reading two opinions from
8239 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
8240 Phipps</a> and
8241 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
8242 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
8243 details about the original story.</p>
8244
8245       </div>
8246       <div class="tags">
8247
8248
8249         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>.
8250
8251
8252       </div>
8253     </div>
8254     <div class="padding"></div>
8255
8256     <div class="entry">
8257       <div class="title">
8258         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
8259       </div>
8260       <div class="date">
8261         18th October 2012
8262       </div>
8263       <div class="body">
8264         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
8265 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
8266 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
8267 across a marvellous drawing by
8268 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
8269 visualising some of what is going on.
8270
8271 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
8272 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
8273
8274 <blockquote>
8275 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
8276 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
8277 </blockquote>
8278
8279 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
8280 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
8281 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
8282 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
8283 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
8284 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
8285
8286       </div>
8287       <div class="tags">
8288
8289
8290         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>.
8291
8292
8293       </div>
8294     </div>
8295     <div class="padding"></div>
8296
8297     <div class="entry">
8298       <div class="title">
8299         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
8300       </div>
8301       <div class="date">
8302         12th October 2012
8303       </div>
8304       <div class="body">
8305         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
8306 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
8307 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
8308 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
8309 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
8310 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
8311 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
8312 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
8313 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
8314 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
8315 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
8316 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
8317 matter".</p>
8318
8319 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
8320 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
8321 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
8322 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
8323 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
8324 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
8325 to argue its side.</p>
8326
8327 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
8328 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
8329 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
8330 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
8331
8332 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
8333 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
8334 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
8335
8336       </div>
8337       <div class="tags">
8338
8339
8340         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>.
8341
8342
8343       </div>
8344     </div>
8345     <div class="padding"></div>
8346
8347     <div class="entry">
8348       <div class="title">
8349         <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>
8350       </div>
8351       <div class="date">
8352          3rd October 2012
8353       </div>
8354       <div class="body">
8355         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
8356 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
8357 the computer science book collection available in his local
8358 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
8359 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
8360 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
8361 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
8362 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
8363 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
8364 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
8365 recently published books.</p>
8366
8367 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
8368 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
8369 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
8370 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
8371 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
8372 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
8373 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
8374 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
8375 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
8376 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
8377 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
8378 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
8379 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
8380 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
8381 for the library that evening.</p>
8382
8383 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
8384 going to know that for example
8385 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
8386 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
8387 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
8388 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
8389 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
8390 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
8391 book right away.</p>
8392
8393       </div>
8394       <div class="tags">
8395
8396
8397         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8398
8399
8400       </div>
8401     </div>
8402     <div class="padding"></div>
8403
8404     <div class="entry">
8405       <div class="title">
8406         <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>
8407       </div>
8408       <div class="date">
8409         23rd September 2012
8410       </div>
8411       <div class="body">
8412         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
8413 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
8414 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
8415 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
8416 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
8417 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
8418
8419 When I started, I
8420 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
8421 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
8422 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
8423 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
8424 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
8425 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
8426 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
8427
8428 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
8429
8430 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
8431 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
8432 the project files currently available from
8433 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
8434
8435 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
8436 the updated
8437 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
8438 and
8439 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
8440 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
8441 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
8442 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
8443
8444       </div>
8445       <div class="tags">
8446
8447
8448         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>.
8449
8450
8451       </div>
8452     </div>
8453     <div class="padding"></div>
8454
8455     <div class="entry">
8456       <div class="title">
8457         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
8458       </div>
8459       <div class="date">
8460         17th September 2012
8461       </div>
8462       <div class="body">
8463         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
8464 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
8465 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
8466 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
8467 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
8468 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
8469 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
8470
8471 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8472
8473 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
8474 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
8475 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
8476 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
8477 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
8478 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
8479 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
8480 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
8481 training is anyway very important</p>
8482
8483 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
8484 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
8485 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
8486 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
8487 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
8488
8489 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8490 project?</strong></p>
8491
8492 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
8493 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
8494 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
8495 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
8496 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
8497 hole.</p>
8498
8499 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8500 Edu?</strong></p>
8501
8502 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
8503 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
8504 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
8505 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
8506 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
8507 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
8508 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
8509 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
8510 hassle.</p>
8511
8512 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8513 Edu?</strong></p>
8514
8515 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
8516 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
8517 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
8518 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
8519 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
8520 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
8521 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
8522 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
8523
8524 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8525
8526 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
8527 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
8528 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
8529 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
8530 has the same...</p>
8531
8532 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
8533 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
8534 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
8535 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
8536
8537 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8538 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8539
8540 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
8541 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
8542 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
8543
8544 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
8545 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
8546 don't.</p>
8547
8548 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
8549 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
8550 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
8551 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
8552 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
8553 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
8554 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
8555
8556       </div>
8557       <div class="tags">
8558
8559
8560         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
8561
8562
8563       </div>
8564     </div>
8565     <div class="padding"></div>
8566
8567     <div class="entry">
8568       <div class="title">
8569         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
8570       </div>
8571       <div class="date">
8572         15th September 2012
8573       </div>
8574       <div class="body">
8575         <p>After the
8576 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
8577 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
8578 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
8579 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
8580 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
8581 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
8582 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
8583 was
8584 <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
8585 formal working group should be formed.</p>
8586
8587 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
8588 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
8589 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
8590 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
8591 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
8592 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
8593 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
8594 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
8595
8596 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
8597 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
8598 IETF.</p>
8599
8600       </div>
8601       <div class="tags">
8602
8603
8604         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>.
8605
8606
8607       </div>
8608     </div>
8609     <div class="padding"></div>
8610
8611     <div class="entry">
8612       <div class="title">
8613         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
8614       </div>
8615       <div class="date">
8616         12th September 2012
8617       </div>
8618       <div class="body">
8619         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
8620 publication of of
8621 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
8622 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
8623 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
8624 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
8625 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
8626 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
8627 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
8628 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
8629 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
8630 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
8631
8632 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
8633 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
8634 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
8635 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
8636
8637 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
8638 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
8639
8640       </div>
8641       <div class="tags">
8642
8643
8644         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>.
8645
8646
8647       </div>
8648     </div>
8649     <div class="padding"></div>
8650
8651     <div class="entry">
8652       <div class="title">
8653         <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>
8654       </div>
8655       <div class="date">
8656          7th September 2012
8657       </div>
8658       <div class="body">
8659         <p>As I
8660 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
8661 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
8662 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
8663 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
8664 repository for the project</a>.</p>
8665
8666 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
8667 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
8668 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
8669 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
8670
8671 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
8672 PostScript formats at
8673 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
8674 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
8675
8676       </div>
8677       <div class="tags">
8678
8679
8680         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>.
8681
8682
8683       </div>
8684     </div>
8685     <div class="padding"></div>
8686
8687     <div class="entry">
8688       <div class="title">
8689         <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>
8690       </div>
8691       <div class="date">
8692         23rd August 2012
8693       </div>
8694       <div class="body">
8695         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
8696 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
8697 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
8698 revisit the great site
8699 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
8700 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
8701 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
8702
8703       </div>
8704       <div class="tags">
8705
8706
8707         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>.
8708
8709
8710       </div>
8711     </div>
8712     <div class="padding"></div>
8713
8714     <div class="entry">
8715       <div class="title">
8716         <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>
8717       </div>
8718       <div class="date">
8719         17th August 2012
8720       </div>
8721       <div class="body">
8722         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
8723 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
8724 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
8725 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
8726 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
8727 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
8728 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
8729 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
8730 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
8731 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
8732 summer I
8733 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
8734 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
8735 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
8736
8737 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
8738 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
8739 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
8740 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
8741 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
8742 progress:</p>
8743
8744 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
8745
8746 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
8747 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
8748 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
8749 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
8750 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
8751 english version of the docbook source.</p>
8752
8753 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
8754 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
8755 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
8756 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
8757 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
8758 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
8759 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
8760 project files currently available from <a
8761 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
8762
8763 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
8764 the updated
8765 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
8766 and
8767 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
8768 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
8769 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
8770 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
8771
8772       </div>
8773       <div class="tags">
8774
8775
8776         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>.
8777
8778
8779       </div>
8780     </div>
8781     <div class="padding"></div>
8782
8783     <div class="entry">
8784       <div class="title">
8785         <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>
8786       </div>
8787       <div class="date">
8788         10th August 2012
8789       </div>
8790       <div class="body">
8791         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
8792 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
8793 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
8794 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
8795 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
8796 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
8797 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
8798 case for the language
8799 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
8800 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
8801
8802 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
8803 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
8804 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
8805 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
8806 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
8807
8808 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
8809 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
8810 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
8811 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
8812 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
8813 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
8814 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
8815 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
8816 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
8817 alias for 'nb'.</p>
8818
8819 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
8820 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
8821 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
8822 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
8823 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
8824 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
8825 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
8826 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
8827 at the same time. :(</p>
8828
8829 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
8830 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
8831 processors. :(</p>
8832
8833 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
8834
8835       </div>
8836       <div class="tags">
8837
8838
8839         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>.
8840
8841
8842       </div>
8843     </div>
8844     <div class="padding"></div>
8845
8846     <div class="entry">
8847       <div class="title">
8848         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
8849       </div>
8850       <div class="date">
8851         31st July 2012
8852       </div>
8853       <div class="body">
8854         <p>I tried to send this text to the
8855 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
8856 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
8857 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
8858 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
8859 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
8860 out.</p>
8861
8862 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
8863 learning curve at the moment.</p>
8864
8865 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
8866 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
8867 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
8868 available from
8869 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
8870 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
8871 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
8872 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
8873 Squeeze.</p>
8874
8875 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
8876 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
8877 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
8878 problems.</p>
8879
8880 <ul>
8881
8882 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
8883    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
8884    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
8885    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
8886    index references spanning several pages (See
8887    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
8888    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
8889    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
8890
8891 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
8892    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
8893    #683163</a>).</li>
8894
8895 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
8896    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
8897    footnote and text body, see
8898    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
8899    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
8900    refs listed are not right).</li>
8901
8902 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
8903
8904 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
8905    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
8906
8907 </ul>
8908
8909 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
8910 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
8911 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
8912
8913 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
8914
8915       </div>
8916       <div class="tags">
8917
8918
8919         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>.
8920
8921
8922       </div>
8923     </div>
8924     <div class="padding"></div>
8925
8926     <div class="entry">
8927       <div class="title">
8928         <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>
8929       </div>
8930       <div class="date">
8931         21st July 2012
8932       </div>
8933       <div class="body">
8934         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
8935 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
8936 norwegian version</a> of the book
8937 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
8938 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
8939 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
8940 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
8941 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
8942
8943 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
8944 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
8945 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
8946 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
8947 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
8948 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
8949 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
8950 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
8951 print. :)</p>
8952
8953 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
8954 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
8955 language.</p>
8956
8957       </div>
8958       <div class="tags">
8959
8960
8961         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>.
8962
8963
8964       </div>
8965     </div>
8966     <div class="padding"></div>
8967
8968     <div class="entry">
8969       <div class="title">
8970         <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>
8971       </div>
8972       <div class="date">
8973         16th July 2012
8974       </div>
8975       <div class="body">
8976         <p>I am currently working on a
8977 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
8978 to translate</a> the book
8979 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
8980 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
8981 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
8982 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
8983 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
8984 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
8985 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
8986
8987 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
8988 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
8989 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
8990 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
8991 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
8992 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
8993 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
8994 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
8995 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
8996
8997       </div>
8998       <div class="tags">
8999
9000
9001         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>.
9002
9003
9004       </div>
9005     </div>
9006     <div class="padding"></div>
9007
9008     <div class="entry">
9009       <div class="title">
9010         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
9011       </div>
9012       <div class="date">
9013          9th July 2012
9014       </div>
9015       <div class="body">
9016         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
9017 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
9018 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
9019 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
9020 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
9021 to adjust and scale the just released
9022 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
9023 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
9024 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
9025
9026 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9027
9028 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
9029 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
9030 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
9031 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
9032 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
9033 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
9034 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
9035 perspective when working with IT.</p>
9036
9037 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9038 project?</strong></p>
9039
9040 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
9041 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
9042 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
9043 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
9044 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
9045 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
9046
9047 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9048 Edu?</strong></p>
9049
9050 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
9051 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
9052 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
9053 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
9054 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
9055 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
9056 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
9057 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
9058 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
9059 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
9060 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
9061 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
9062 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
9063 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
9064 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
9065 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
9066 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
9067 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
9068 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
9069 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
9070 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
9071 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
9072 quicker to update.
9073
9074 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9075 Edu?</strong></p>
9076
9077 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
9078 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
9079 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
9080 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
9081 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
9082 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
9083
9084 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
9085 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
9086 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
9087 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
9088 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
9089 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
9090 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
9091 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
9092 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
9093 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
9094 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
9095 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
9096 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
9097 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
9098 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
9099
9100 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
9101 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
9102 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
9103 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
9104 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
9105 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
9106 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
9107 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
9108
9109 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
9110 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
9111 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
9112 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
9113 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
9114 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
9115 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
9116 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
9117 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
9118 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
9119 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
9120 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
9121 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
9122 sound file.</p>
9123
9124 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
9125 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
9126 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
9127 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
9128 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
9129 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
9130 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
9131 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
9132 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
9133
9134 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9135
9136 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
9137 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
9138 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
9139 )</p>
9140
9141 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9142 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9143
9144 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
9145 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
9146 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
9147 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
9148 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
9149 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
9150 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
9151 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
9152 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
9153 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
9154 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
9155 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
9156 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
9157 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
9158 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
9159
9160 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
9161 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
9162 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
9163 management with Airtime</a>,
9164 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
9165 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
9166 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
9167 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
9168 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
9169
9170       </div>
9171       <div class="tags">
9172
9173
9174         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9175
9176
9177       </div>
9178     </div>
9179     <div class="padding"></div>
9180
9181     <div class="entry">
9182       <div class="title">
9183         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
9184       </div>
9185       <div class="date">
9186          8th July 2012
9187       </div>
9188       <div class="body">
9189         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
9190 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
9191 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
9192 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
9193 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
9194 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
9195 Steinberg in his blog post
9196 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
9197 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
9198 spending of your tax money.</p>
9199
9200 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
9201 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
9202 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
9203 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
9204 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
9205 purchases.</p>
9206
9207       </div>
9208       <div class="tags">
9209
9210
9211         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9212
9213
9214       </div>
9215     </div>
9216     <div class="padding"></div>
9217
9218     <div class="entry">
9219       <div class="title">
9220         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
9221       </div>
9222       <div class="date">
9223          7th July 2012
9224       </div>
9225       <div class="body">
9226         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
9227 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
9228 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
9229 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
9230 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
9231 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
9232 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
9233 receive.  The software is
9234
9235 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
9236 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
9237 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
9238 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
9239 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
9240 Windows</a>.</p>
9241
9242 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
9243 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
9244
9245 <p><ul>
9246
9247   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
9248     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
9249
9250   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
9251     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
9252     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
9253     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
9254     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
9255     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
9256     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
9257     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
9258     </li>
9259
9260   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
9261     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
9262
9263   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
9264     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
9265
9266   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
9267     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
9268
9269   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
9270
9271   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
9272     formats </li>
9273
9274   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
9275     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
9276     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
9277     (as separate sets)</li>
9278
9279   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
9280     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
9281     percentage)</li>
9282
9283   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
9284     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
9285     memory):
9286     <ul>
9287       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
9288       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
9289       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
9290       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
9291       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
9292       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
9293       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
9294       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
9295       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
9296       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
9297           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
9298           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
9299           activity)</li>
9300       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
9301       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
9302     </ul></li>
9303
9304   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
9305     <ul>
9306       <li>Break periods</li>
9307       <li>For teacher(s):
9308         <ul>
9309           <li>Not available periods</li>
9310           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
9311           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
9312           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
9313           <li>Min hours daily</li>
9314           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
9315
9316           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
9317             days per week</li>
9318         </ul></li>
9319       <li>For students (sets):
9320         <ul>
9321           <li>Not available periods</li>
9322           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
9323           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
9324           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
9325           <li>Min hours daily</li>
9326           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
9327
9328           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
9329             days per week</li>
9330         </ul></li>
9331       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
9332         <ul>
9333           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
9334           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
9335           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
9336           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
9337           <li>End(s) students day</li>
9338           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
9339           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
9340             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
9341           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
9342           <li>Not overlapping</li>
9343           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
9344           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
9345         </ul></li>
9346     </ul></li>
9347
9348   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
9349     <ul>
9350       <li>Room not available periods</li>
9351       <li>For teacher(s):
9352         <ul>
9353           <li>Home room(s)</li>
9354           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
9355           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
9356         </ul>
9357       </li>
9358
9359       <li>For students (sets):
9360         <ul>
9361           <li>Home room(s)</li>
9362           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
9363           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
9364         </ul>
9365       </li>
9366       <li>Preferred room(s):
9367         <ul>
9368           <li>For a subject</li>
9369           <li>For an activity tag</li>
9370           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
9371           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
9372         </ul>
9373       </li>
9374
9375       <li>For a set of activities:
9376         <ul>
9377           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
9378         </ul>
9379       </li>
9380     </ul>
9381   </li>
9382 </ul></p>
9383
9384 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
9385 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
9386 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
9387 manually, check it out.
9388
9389 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
9390 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
9391 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
9392 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
9393 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
9394 section</a>.</p>
9395
9396       </div>
9397       <div class="tags">
9398
9399
9400         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9401
9402
9403       </div>
9404     </div>
9405     <div class="padding"></div>
9406
9407     <div class="entry">
9408       <div class="title">
9409         <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>
9410       </div>
9411       <div class="date">
9412          3rd July 2012
9413       </div>
9414       <div class="body">
9415         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
9416 project (Norwegian version of
9417 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
9418 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
9419 a problem with the municipalities using
9420 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
9421 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
9422 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
9423 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
9424 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
9425 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
9426 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
9427 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
9428 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
9429 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
9430 the From: header.</p>
9431
9432 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
9433 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
9434 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
9435 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
9436 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
9437 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
9438 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
9439 behaviour.</p>
9440
9441 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
9442 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
9443 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
9444 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
9445 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
9446 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
9447 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
9448
9449       </div>
9450       <div class="tags">
9451
9452
9453         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>.
9454
9455
9456       </div>
9457     </div>
9458     <div class="padding"></div>
9459
9460     <div class="entry">
9461       <div class="title">
9462         <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>
9463       </div>
9464       <div class="date">
9465         26th June 2012
9466       </div>
9467       <div class="body">
9468         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
9469 another interview with the people behind
9470 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
9471 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
9472 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
9473 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
9474 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
9475 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
9476 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
9477
9478 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9479
9480 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
9481 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
9482 ICT in schools</p>
9483
9484 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9485 project?</strong></p>
9486
9487 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
9488 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
9489 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
9490 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
9491
9492 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9493 Edu?</strong></p>
9494
9495 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
9496 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
9497 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
9498 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
9499
9500 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9501 Edu?</strong></p>
9502
9503 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
9504 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
9505 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
9506 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
9507 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
9508 technologies in school.</p>
9509
9510 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9511
9512 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
9513 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
9514 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
9515
9516 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9517 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9518
9519 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
9520 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
9521 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
9522 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
9523
9524 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
9525 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
9526 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
9527
9528 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
9529 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
9530 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
9531 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
9532 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
9533 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
9534 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
9535 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
9536 working there.</p>
9537
9538       </div>
9539       <div class="tags">
9540
9541
9542         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9543
9544
9545       </div>
9546     </div>
9547     <div class="padding"></div>
9548
9549     <div class="entry">
9550       <div class="title">
9551         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
9552       </div>
9553       <div class="date">
9554         24th June 2012
9555       </div>
9556       <div class="body">
9557         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
9558 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
9559 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
9560 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
9561 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
9562 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
9563 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
9564 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
9565 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
9566 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
9567 missing in my book.</p>
9568
9569 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
9570 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
9571 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
9572 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
9573 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
9574 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
9575 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
9576
9577       </div>
9578       <div class="tags">
9579
9580
9581         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>.
9582
9583
9584       </div>
9585     </div>
9586     <div class="padding"></div>
9587
9588     <div class="entry">
9589       <div class="title">
9590         <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>
9591       </div>
9592       <div class="date">
9593         11th June 2012
9594       </div>
9595       <div class="body">
9596         <p>During my work on
9597 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
9598 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
9599 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
9600 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
9601 explanation.</p>
9602
9603 <p><ul>
9604
9605 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
9606 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
9607 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
9608 system depend on tasksel tasks in
9609 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
9610 installation.</li>
9611
9612 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
9613 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
9614 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
9615 at least try to enable it for these services:
9616 <ul>
9617
9618   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
9619     quotas.</li>
9620   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
9621   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
9622   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
9623   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
9624   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
9625
9626 </ul></li>
9627
9628 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
9629 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
9630 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
9631 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
9632
9633 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
9634 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
9635 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
9636
9637 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
9638 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
9639 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
9640 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
9641 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
9642 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
9643
9644 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
9645 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
9646 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
9647 in Wheezy.
9648
9649 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
9650 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
9651 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
9652
9653 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
9654 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
9655 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
9656 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
9657
9658 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
9659 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
9660 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
9661 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
9662
9663 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
9664 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
9665 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
9666
9667 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
9668 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
9669 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
9670
9671 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
9672 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
9673 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
9674 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
9675 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
9676
9677 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
9678 <ul>
9679
9680 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
9681 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
9682 <li>and probably more?</li>
9683 </ul></li>
9684
9685 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
9686 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
9687 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
9688 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
9689 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
9690 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
9691 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
9692 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
9693
9694
9695 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
9696 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
9697 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
9698 use.</li>
9699
9700 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
9701 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
9702 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
9703 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
9704 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
9705
9706 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
9707 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
9708 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
9709 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
9710 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
9711 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
9712
9713 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
9714 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
9715 There are at least three implementations,
9716 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
9717 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
9718 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
9719 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
9720 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
9721 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
9722 given room.</li>
9723
9724 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
9725 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
9726 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
9727 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
9728 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
9729 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
9730 investigated.</li>
9731
9732 </ul></p>
9733
9734 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
9735 version.</p>
9736
9737       </div>
9738       <div class="tags">
9739
9740
9741         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9742
9743
9744       </div>
9745     </div>
9746     <div class="padding"></div>
9747
9748     <div class="entry">
9749       <div class="title">
9750         <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>
9751       </div>
9752       <div class="date">
9753          9th June 2012
9754       </div>
9755       <div class="body">
9756         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
9757 <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
9758 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
9759 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
9760 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
9761 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
9762 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
9763 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
9764 be willing to pay for.</p>
9765
9766 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
9767 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
9768 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
9769 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
9770 Orwell</a>.</p>
9771
9772       </div>
9773       <div class="tags">
9774
9775
9776         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>.
9777
9778
9779       </div>
9780     </div>
9781     <div class="padding"></div>
9782
9783     <div class="entry">
9784       <div class="title">
9785         <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>
9786       </div>
9787       <div class="date">
9788          6th June 2012
9789       </div>
9790       <div class="body">
9791         <p>A few days ago
9792 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
9793 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
9794 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
9795 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
9796 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
9797 code for HP, Dell and IBM
9798 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
9799 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
9800 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
9801 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
9802 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
9803
9804 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
9805 output:
9806
9807 <blockquote><pre>
9808 % 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>
9809 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": ""})
9810 %
9811 </pre></blockquote>
9812
9813 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
9814 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
9815 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
9816
9817       </div>
9818       <div class="tags">
9819
9820
9821         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>.
9822
9823
9824       </div>
9825     </div>
9826     <div class="padding"></div>
9827
9828     <div class="entry">
9829       <div class="title">
9830         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
9831       </div>
9832       <div class="date">
9833          2nd June 2012
9834       </div>
9835       <div class="body">
9836         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
9837 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
9838 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
9839 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
9840 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
9841 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
9842
9843 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9844
9845 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
9846 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
9847 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
9848 by Angela).</p>
9849
9850 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
9851 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
9852 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
9853 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
9854 becoming an osteopath.</p>
9855
9856 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
9857 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
9858 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
9859 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
9860 skills with communication skills.</p>
9861
9862 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9863 project?</strong></p>
9864
9865 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
9866 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
9867 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
9868 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
9869 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
9870
9871 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
9872 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
9873 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
9874 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
9875 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
9876 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
9877 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
9878 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
9879 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
9880
9881 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
9882 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
9883 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
9884
9885 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
9886
9887 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
9888 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
9889 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
9890 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
9891 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
9892 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
9893 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
9894 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
9895 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
9896 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
9897 point.</p>
9898
9899 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
9900 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
9901 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
9902 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
9903 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
9904 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
9905
9906 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
9907 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
9908 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
9909 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
9910 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
9911 spare time.</p>
9912
9913 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
9914 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
9915 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
9916 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
9917 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
9918
9919 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
9920 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
9921 avoidance do exist.</p>
9922
9923 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
9924 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
9925 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
9926 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
9927 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
9928 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
9929 and probably a gain for all.</p>
9930
9931 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9932 Edu?</strong></p>
9933
9934 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
9935 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
9936 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
9937 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
9938 project communication, honest communication within the group of
9939 developers, etc.</p>
9940
9941 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9942 Edu?</strong></p>
9943
9944 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
9945
9946 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
9947 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
9948 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
9949 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
9950 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
9951 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
9952 contribute).</p>
9953
9954 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
9955 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
9956 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
9957 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
9958 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
9959 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
9960 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
9961 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
9962 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
9963 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
9964
9965 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9966
9967 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
9968
9969 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
9970 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
9971 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
9972
9973 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
9974 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
9975 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
9976 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
9977
9978 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
9979 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
9980 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
9981 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
9982 whiteboard.</p>
9983
9984 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
9985
9986 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9987 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9988
9989 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
9990 enrol people.</p>
9991
9992       </div>
9993       <div class="tags">
9994
9995
9996         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9997
9998
9999       </div>
10000     </div>
10001     <div class="padding"></div>
10002
10003     <div class="entry">
10004       <div class="title">
10005         <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>
10006       </div>
10007       <div class="date">
10008          1st June 2012
10009       </div>
10010       <div class="body">
10011         <p>A few years ago I wrote
10012 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
10013 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
10014 I have learned from colleges here at the
10015 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
10016 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
10017 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
10018 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
10019 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
10020
10021 <p><pre>
10022 use strict;
10023 use warnings;
10024 use SOAP::Lite;
10025 use Data::Dumper;
10026 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
10027 my $App = 'test';
10028 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
10029 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
10030 my $s = SOAP::Lite
10031     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
10032     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
10033     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
10034     ;
10035 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
10036     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
10037     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
10038     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
10039 );
10040 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
10041 </pre></p>
10042
10043 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
10044
10045 <p><pre>
10046 $VAR1 = {
10047           'Asset' => {
10048                      'Entitlements' => {
10049                                        'EntitlementData' => [
10050                                                             {
10051                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
10052                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
10053                                                               'Provider' => '',
10054                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
10055                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
10056                                                             },
10057                                                             {
10058                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
10059                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
10060                                                               'Provider' => '',
10061                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
10062                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
10063                                                             },
10064                                                             {
10065                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
10066                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
10067                                                               'Provider' => '',
10068                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
10069                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
10070                                                             }
10071                                                           ]
10072                                      },
10073                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
10074                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
10075                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
10076                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
10077                                           'Buid' => '2323',
10078                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
10079                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
10080                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
10081                                         }
10082                    }
10083         };
10084 </pre></p>
10085
10086 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
10087 service outside the
10088 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
10089 documentation</a>, and according to
10090 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
10091 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
10092 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
10093
10094 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
10095 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
10096
10097       </div>
10098       <div class="tags">
10099
10100
10101         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>.
10102
10103
10104       </div>
10105     </div>
10106     <div class="padding"></div>
10107
10108     <div class="entry">
10109       <div class="title">
10110         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
10111       </div>
10112       <div class="date">
10113         31st May 2012
10114       </div>
10115       <div class="body">
10116         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
10117 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
10118 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
10119 running Debian Squeeze, where
10120 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
10121 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
10122 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
10123 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
10124 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
10125 another day.</p>
10126
10127 <p>After calibration, I get a
10128 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
10129 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
10130 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
10131 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
10132 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
10133 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
10134 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
10135 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
10136 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
10137 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
10138 and a simple</p>
10139
10140 <p><pre>
10141 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
10142 </pre></p>
10143
10144 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
10145 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
10146 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
10147 enough for now.</p>
10148
10149       </div>
10150       <div class="tags">
10151
10152
10153         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10154
10155
10156       </div>
10157     </div>
10158     <div class="padding"></div>
10159
10160     <div class="entry">
10161       <div class="title">
10162         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
10163       </div>
10164       <div class="date">
10165         27th May 2012
10166       </div>
10167       <div class="body">
10168         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
10169 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
10170 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
10171 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
10172 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
10173 since then, helping to make sure the
10174 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
10175 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
10176
10177 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10178
10179 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
10180 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
10181 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
10182 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
10183 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
10184 our computer network.</p>
10185
10186 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
10187 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
10188 (4 months).</p>
10189
10190 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10191 project?</strong></p>
10192
10193 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
10194 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
10195 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
10196 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
10197 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
10198 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
10199 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
10200 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
10201 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
10202 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
10203 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
10204 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
10205 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
10206 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
10207
10208 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10209 Edu?</strong></p>
10210
10211 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
10212 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
10213 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
10214 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
10215 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
10216 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
10217 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
10218 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
10219
10220 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10221 Edu?</strong></p>
10222
10223 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
10224 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
10225 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
10226 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
10227 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
10228 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
10229 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
10230 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
10231 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
10232 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
10233 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
10234 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
10235
10236 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10237
10238 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
10239 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
10240 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
10241
10242 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10243 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10244
10245 <p><ol>
10246
10247 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
10248 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
10249 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
10250 developing.</li>
10251
10252 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
10253 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
10254 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
10255 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
10256 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
10257
10258 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
10259 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
10260 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
10261
10262 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
10263 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
10264 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
10265 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
10266
10267 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
10268 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
10269 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
10270
10271 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
10272
10273 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
10274 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
10275 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
10276 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
10277
10278 </ol></p>
10279
10280       </div>
10281       <div class="tags">
10282
10283
10284         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10285
10286
10287       </div>
10288     </div>
10289     <div class="padding"></div>
10290
10291     <div class="entry">
10292       <div class="title">
10293         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
10294       </div>
10295       <div class="date">
10296         26th May 2012
10297       </div>
10298       <div class="body">
10299         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
10300 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
10301 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
10302 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
10303 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
10304
10305 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
10306 <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>
10307 comment:</p>
10308
10309 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
10310 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
10311 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
10312 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
10313 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
10314 </blockquote></p>
10315
10316 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
10317 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
10318 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
10319 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
10320 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
10321 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
10322 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
10323 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
10324 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
10325 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
10326 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
10327 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
10328 of wasted effort.</p>
10329
10330 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
10331 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
10332 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
10333
10334 <p>See
10335 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
10336 and
10337 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
10338 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
10339 </blockquote></p>
10340
10341       </div>
10342       <div class="tags">
10343
10344
10345         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>.
10346
10347
10348       </div>
10349     </div>
10350     <div class="padding"></div>
10351
10352     <div class="entry">
10353       <div class="title">
10354         <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>
10355       </div>
10356       <div class="date">
10357         18th May 2012
10358       </div>
10359       <div class="body">
10360         <p>In january, I
10361 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
10362 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
10363 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
10364 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
10365 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
10366 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
10367 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
10368 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
10369 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
10370 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
10371
10372 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
10373 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
10374 drivers. :)</p>
10375
10376       </div>
10377       <div class="tags">
10378
10379
10380         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10381
10382
10383       </div>
10384     </div>
10385     <div class="padding"></div>
10386
10387     <div class="entry">
10388       <div class="title">
10389         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
10390       </div>
10391       <div class="date">
10392         13th May 2012
10393       </div>
10394       <div class="body">
10395         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
10396 publish another interview with the people behind
10397 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
10398 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
10399 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
10400 details get right before release.
10401
10402 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10403
10404 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
10405 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
10406 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
10407 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
10408 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
10409 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
10410 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
10411 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
10412
10413 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
10414 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
10415 home since 2006.</p>
10416
10417 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10418 project?</strong></p>
10419
10420 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
10421 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
10422 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
10423 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
10424 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
10425 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
10426
10427 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
10428 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
10429 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
10430 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
10431 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
10432 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
10433 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
10434 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
10435 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
10436 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
10437 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
10438 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
10439 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
10440 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
10441 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
10442 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
10443
10444 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10445 Edu?</strong></p>
10446
10447 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
10448 for me as today.</p>
10449
10450 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
10451
10452 <p><ul>
10453
10454 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
10455 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
10456
10457 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
10458 cost.</li>
10459
10460 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
10461 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
10462 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
10463 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
10464 server</li>
10465
10466 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
10467 school.</li>
10468
10469 </ul></p>
10470
10471 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
10472 came up in this way:</p>
10473
10474 <p><ul>
10475
10476 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
10477 now.</li>
10478
10479 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
10480 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
10481 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
10482
10483 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
10484 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
10485 interfaces used in the past.</li>
10486
10487 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
10488 different needs.</li>
10489
10490 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
10491
10492 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
10493 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
10494 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
10495
10496 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
10497 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
10498
10499 </ul></p>
10500
10501 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10502 Edu?</strong></p>
10503
10504 <p><ul>
10505
10506 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
10507 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
10508 whole municipality areas.</li>
10509
10510 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
10511 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
10512 politicians.</li>
10513
10514 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
10515
10516 </ul></p>
10517
10518 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10519
10520 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
10521 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
10522 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
10523 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
10524 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
10525 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
10526
10527 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
10528 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
10529 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
10530 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
10531 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
10532
10533 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10534 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10535
10536 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
10537 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
10538 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
10539
10540       </div>
10541       <div class="tags">
10542
10543
10544         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10545
10546
10547       </div>
10548     </div>
10549     <div class="padding"></div>
10550
10551     <div class="entry">
10552       <div class="title">
10553         <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>
10554       </div>
10555       <div class="date">
10556         30th April 2012
10557       </div>
10558       <div class="body">
10559         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
10560 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
10561
10562 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
10563 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
10564 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
10565 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
10566 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
10567 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
10568 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
10569 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
10570 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
10571 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
10572 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
10573 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
10574 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
10575 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
10576 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
10577 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
10578
10579 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
10580 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
10581 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
10582 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
10583 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
10584 finally found a Danish supplier
10585 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
10586 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
10587 days ago.</p>
10588
10589 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
10590 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
10591 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
10592 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
10593 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
10594 toys.</p>
10595
10596       </div>
10597       <div class="tags">
10598
10599
10600         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10601
10602
10603       </div>
10604     </div>
10605     <div class="padding"></div>
10606
10607     <div class="entry">
10608       <div class="title">
10609         <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>
10610       </div>
10611       <div class="date">
10612         26th April 2012
10613       </div>
10614       <div class="body">
10615         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
10616 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
10617 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
10618 that the video editor application included with
10619 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
10620 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
10621 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
10622
10623 <p><blockquote>
10624 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
10625 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
10626 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
10627 </blockquote></p>
10628
10629 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
10630
10631 <p><blockquote>
10632 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
10633 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
10634 </blockquote></p>
10635
10636 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
10637 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
10638 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
10639 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
10640 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
10641 video.  AMR is
10642 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
10643 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
10644 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
10645 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
10646 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
10647 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
10648 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
10649
10650 <p>I know why I prefer
10651 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
10652 standards</a> also for video.</p>
10653
10654       </div>
10655       <div class="tags">
10656
10657
10658         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>.
10659
10660
10661       </div>
10662     </div>
10663     <div class="padding"></div>
10664
10665     <div class="entry">
10666       <div class="title">
10667         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
10668       </div>
10669       <div class="date">
10670         19th April 2012
10671       </div>
10672       <div class="body">
10673         <p>Here in Norway, the
10674 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
10675 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
10676 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
10677 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
10678 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
10679 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
10680 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
10681 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
10682 on the same level.</p>
10683
10684 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
10685 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
10686 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
10687 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
10688 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
10689 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
10690 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
10691 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
10692 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
10693 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
10694 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
10695 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
10696 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
10697 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
10698 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
10699 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
10700 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
10701 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
10702
10703 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
10704 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
10705 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
10706 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
10707 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
10708 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
10709 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
10710 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
10711
10712 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
10713 from Simon Phipps
10714 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
10715 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
10716
10717 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
10718 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
10719 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
10720 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
10721 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
10722 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
10723 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
10724 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
10725 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
10726
10727       </div>
10728       <div class="tags">
10729
10730
10731         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>.
10732
10733
10734       </div>
10735     </div>
10736     <div class="padding"></div>
10737
10738     <div class="entry">
10739       <div class="title">
10740         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
10741       </div>
10742       <div class="date">
10743         15th April 2012
10744       </div>
10745       <div class="body">
10746         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
10747 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
10748 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
10749 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
10750 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
10751 up in the recently released
10752 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
10753 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
10754
10755 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10756
10757 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
10758 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
10759 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
10760 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
10761 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
10762 information technology and science/technology.</p>
10763
10764 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10765 project?</strong></p>
10766
10767 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
10768 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
10769 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
10770 contributing.</p>
10771
10772 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10773 Edu?</strong></p>
10774
10775 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
10776 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
10777 Debian Project!</p>
10778
10779 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10780 Edu?</strong></p>
10781
10782 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
10783 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
10784 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
10785 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
10786 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
10787 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
10788 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
10789
10790 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
10791 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
10792
10793 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10794
10795 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
10796 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
10797 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
10798 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
10799
10800 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10801 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10802
10803 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
10804 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
10805 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
10806 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
10807 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
10808 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
10809 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
10810
10811 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
10812 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
10813 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
10814 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
10815 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
10816 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
10817 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
10818 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
10819
10820       </div>
10821       <div class="tags">
10822
10823
10824         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10825
10826
10827       </div>
10828     </div>
10829     <div class="padding"></div>
10830
10831     <div class="entry">
10832       <div class="title">
10833         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
10834       </div>
10835       <div class="date">
10836          8th April 2012
10837       </div>
10838       <div class="body">
10839         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
10840 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
10841 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
10842 contributor to the
10843 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
10844 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
10845
10846 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10847
10848 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
10849 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
10850
10851 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10852 project?</strong></p>
10853
10854 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
10855 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
10856 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
10857 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
10858 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
10859 "localisation".</p>
10860
10861 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10862 Edu?</strong></p>
10863
10864 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10865 Edu?</strong></p>
10866
10867 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
10868 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
10869 education system.</p>
10870
10871 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
10872 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
10873 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
10874 money on the latest hardware.</p>
10875
10876 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10877
10878 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
10879 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
10880 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
10881
10882 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10883 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10884
10885 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
10886 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
10887 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
10888
10889       </div>
10890       <div class="tags">
10891
10892
10893         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10894
10895
10896       </div>
10897     </div>
10898     <div class="padding"></div>
10899
10900     <div class="entry">
10901       <div class="title">
10902         <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>
10903       </div>
10904       <div class="date">
10905          6th April 2012
10906       </div>
10907       <div class="body">
10908         <p>Recently I have spent time with
10909 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
10910 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
10911 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
10912 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
10913 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
10914 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
10915 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
10916 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
10917
10918 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
10919 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
10920 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
10921 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
10922 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
10923 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
10924 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
10925 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
10926
10927 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
10928 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
10929 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
10930 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
10931 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
10932 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
10933 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
10934 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
10935
10936 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
10937 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
10938 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
10939 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
10940 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
10941 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
10942 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
10943 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
10944 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
10945 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
10946
10947 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
10948 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
10949 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
10950 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
10951
10952 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
10953 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
10954
10955       </div>
10956       <div class="tags">
10957
10958
10959         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10960
10961
10962       </div>
10963     </div>
10964     <div class="padding"></div>
10965
10966     <div class="entry">
10967       <div class="title">
10968         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
10969       </div>
10970       <div class="date">
10971          5th April 2012
10972       </div>
10973       <div class="body">
10974         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
10975 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
10976 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
10977 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
10978 for schools.  Check out his article
10979 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
10980 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
10981
10982       </div>
10983       <div class="tags">
10984
10985
10986         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10987
10988
10989       </div>
10990     </div>
10991     <div class="padding"></div>
10992
10993     <div class="entry">
10994       <div class="title">
10995         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
10996       </div>
10997       <div class="date">
10998          1st April 2012
10999       </div>
11000       <div class="body">
11001         <p>Germany is a core area for the
11002 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
11003 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
11004 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
11005
11006 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11007
11008 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
11009 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
11010 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
11011 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
11012 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
11013 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
11014 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
11015 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
11016
11017 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
11018 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
11019 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
11020 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
11021 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
11022 the end of April this year.</p>
11023
11024 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11025 project?</strong></p>
11026
11027 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
11028 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
11029 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
11030 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
11031 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
11032 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
11033 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
11034 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
11035 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
11036 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
11037 Skolelinux.</p>
11038
11039 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
11040 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
11041 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
11042 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
11043 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
11044 the admin teachers.</p>
11045
11046 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11047 Edu?</strong></p>
11048
11049 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
11050 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
11051 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
11052
11053 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
11054 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
11055 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
11056 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
11057 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
11058
11059 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11060 Edu?</strong></p>
11061
11062 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
11063
11064 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11065
11066 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
11067 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
11068 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
11069 LibreOffice.</p>
11070
11071 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
11072 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
11073
11074 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
11075 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
11076 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
11077
11078       </div>
11079       <div class="tags">
11080
11081
11082         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
11083
11084
11085       </div>
11086     </div>
11087     <div class="padding"></div>
11088
11089     <div class="entry">
11090       <div class="title">
11091         <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>
11092       </div>
11093       <div class="date">
11094         25th March 2012
11095       </div>
11096       <div class="body">
11097         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
11098
11099 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
11100 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
11101 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
11102 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
11103 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
11104 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
11105 and download as a
11106 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
11107 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
11108
11109 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
11110   <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"' />
11111     <p>Download video as
11112       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
11113 </video></p>
11114
11115       </div>
11116       <div class="tags">
11117
11118
11119         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11120
11121
11122       </div>
11123     </div>
11124     <div class="padding"></div>
11125
11126     <div class="entry">
11127       <div class="title">
11128         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
11129       </div>
11130       <div class="date">
11131         19th March 2012
11132       </div>
11133       <div class="body">
11134         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
11135 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
11136 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
11137 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
11138 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
11139
11140 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11141
11142 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
11143 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
11144 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
11145 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
11146 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
11147 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
11148 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
11149 installations.</p>
11150
11151 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11152 project?</strong></p>
11153
11154 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
11155 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
11156 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
11157 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
11158 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
11159 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
11160 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
11161 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
11162 these things we decided to try it.</p>
11163
11164 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11165 Edu?</strong></p>
11166
11167 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
11168 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
11169 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
11170 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
11171 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
11172 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
11173 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
11174 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
11175
11176 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11177 Edu?</strong></p>
11178
11179 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
11180 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
11181 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
11182 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
11183 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
11184
11185 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11186
11187 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
11188 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
11189 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
11190 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
11191 that counts...)</p>
11192
11193 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
11194 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
11195
11196 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
11197 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
11198 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
11199 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
11200 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
11201 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
11202 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
11203 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
11204 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
11205 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
11206 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
11207
11208 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
11209 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
11210 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
11211
11212       </div>
11213       <div class="tags">
11214
11215
11216         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
11217
11218
11219       </div>
11220     </div>
11221     <div class="padding"></div>
11222
11223     <div class="entry">
11224       <div class="title">
11225         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
11226       </div>
11227       <div class="date">
11228         16th March 2012
11229       </div>
11230       <div class="body">
11231         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
11232 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
11233 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
11234 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
11235
11236 <ol>
11237
11238 <li>The documentation is written in a
11239 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
11240 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
11241 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
11242 docbook XML.</li>
11243
11244 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
11245 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
11246 with the translated text.</li>
11247
11248 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
11249 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
11250 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
11251 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
11252 images.</li>
11253
11254 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
11255 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
11256
11257 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
11258 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
11259
11260 </ol>
11261
11262 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
11263 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
11264 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
11265 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
11266 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
11267
11268 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
11269 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
11270 package</a>.</p>
11271
11272       </div>
11273       <div class="tags">
11274
11275
11276         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11277
11278
11279       </div>
11280     </div>
11281     <div class="padding"></div>
11282
11283     <div class="entry">
11284       <div class="title">
11285         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
11286       </div>
11287       <div class="date">
11288         11th March 2012
11289       </div>
11290       <div class="body">
11291         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
11292 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
11293 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
11294 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
11295 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
11296 you have not done so already.</p>
11297
11298 <p>I plan to present the new version at
11299 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
11300 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
11301 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
11302
11303       </div>
11304       <div class="tags">
11305
11306
11307         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11308
11309
11310       </div>
11311     </div>
11312     <div class="padding"></div>
11313
11314     <div class="entry">
11315       <div class="title">
11316         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
11317       </div>
11318       <div class="date">
11319          9th March 2012
11320       </div>
11321       <div class="body">
11322         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
11323 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
11324 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
11325 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
11326 more international audience.</p>
11327
11328 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
11329 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
11330 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
11331 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
11332 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
11333 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
11334 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
11335
11336
11337 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11338
11339 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
11340 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
11341 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
11342 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
11343 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
11344 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
11345 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
11346 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
11347 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
11348 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
11349 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
11350
11351 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
11352 project?</strong></p>
11353
11354 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
11355 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
11356 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
11357 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
11358 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
11359 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
11360 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
11361 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
11362 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
11363 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
11364 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
11365 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
11366 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
11367
11368 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11369 Edu?</strong></p>
11370
11371 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
11372 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
11373 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
11374 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
11375 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
11376 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
11377 Japan.</p>
11378
11379 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
11380 Edu?</strong></p>
11381
11382 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
11383 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
11384 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
11385 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
11386 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
11387 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
11388 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
11389 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
11390 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
11391 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
11392 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
11393 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
11394 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
11395 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
11396 help.</p>
11397
11398 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
11399
11400 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
11401 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
11402 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
11403 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
11404 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
11405 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
11406 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
11407 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
11408 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
11409 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
11410 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
11411
11412 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
11413 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
11414
11415 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
11416 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
11417 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
11418 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
11419 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
11420 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
11421 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
11422 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
11423 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
11424 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
11425 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
11426 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
11427
11428       </div>
11429       <div class="tags">
11430
11431
11432         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
11433
11434
11435       </div>
11436     </div>
11437     <div class="padding"></div>
11438
11439     <div class="entry">
11440       <div class="title">
11441         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Mass_creation_of_user_accounts_in_Squeeze.html">Debian Edu screencast: Mass creation of user accounts in Squeeze</a>
11442       </div>
11443       <div class="date">
11444          7th March 2012
11445       </div>
11446       <div class="body">
11447         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
11448
11449 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
11450 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
11451 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
11452 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
11453 download as a
11454 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
11455 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
11456
11457 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
11458   <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"' />
11459     <p>Download video as
11460       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
11461 </video></p>
11462
11463       </div>
11464       <div class="tags">
11465
11466
11467         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11468
11469
11470       </div>
11471     </div>
11472     <div class="padding"></div>
11473
11474     <div class="entry">
11475       <div class="title">
11476         <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>
11477       </div>
11478       <div class="date">
11479          4th March 2012
11480       </div>
11481       <div class="body">
11482         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
11483 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
11484 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
11485 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
11486 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
11487 need a software solution for your school.</p>
11488
11489       </div>
11490       <div class="tags">
11491
11492
11493         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11494
11495
11496       </div>
11497     </div>
11498     <div class="padding"></div>
11499
11500     <div class="entry">
11501       <div class="title">
11502         <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>
11503       </div>
11504       <div class="date">
11505          3rd March 2012
11506       </div>
11507       <div class="body">
11508         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
11509 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
11510 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
11511 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
11512 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
11513 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
11514 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
11515 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
11516 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
11517 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
11518 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
11519 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
11520 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
11521 year...</p>
11522
11523 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
11524 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
11525 name,
11526 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
11527 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
11528 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
11529 mean). I've been following
11530 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
11531 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
11532 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
11533 Check it out. :)</p>
11534
11535       </div>
11536       <div class="tags">
11537
11538
11539         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
11540
11541
11542       </div>
11543     </div>
11544     <div class="padding"></div>
11545
11546     <div class="entry">
11547       <div class="title">
11548         <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>
11549       </div>
11550       <div class="date">
11551         27th February 2012
11552       </div>
11553       <div class="body">
11554         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
11555 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
11556 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
11557 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
11558 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
11559 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
11560 need a software solution for your school.</p>
11561
11562       </div>
11563       <div class="tags">
11564
11565
11566         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11567
11568
11569       </div>
11570     </div>
11571     <div class="padding"></div>
11572
11573     <div class="entry">
11574       <div class="title">
11575         <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>
11576       </div>
11577       <div class="date">
11578         19th February 2012
11579       </div>
11580       <div class="body">
11581         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
11582 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
11583 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
11584 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
11585 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
11586 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
11587 solution for your school.</p>
11588
11589       </div>
11590       <div class="tags">
11591
11592
11593         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11594
11595
11596       </div>
11597     </div>
11598     <div class="padding"></div>
11599
11600     <div class="entry">
11601       <div class="title">
11602         <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>
11603       </div>
11604       <div class="date">
11605         14th February 2012
11606       </div>
11607       <div class="body">
11608         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
11609 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
11610 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
11611 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
11612 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
11613 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
11614 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
11615 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
11616 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
11617
11618 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
11619 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
11620 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
11621 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
11622 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
11623
11624 <blockquote><pre>
11625 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
11626 do
11627     printf "Failed disk $d: "
11628     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
11629 done
11630 </blockquote></pre>
11631
11632 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
11633 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
11634
11635 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
11636
11637 <blockquote><pre>
11638 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
11639 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
11640 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
11641 </blockquote></pre>
11642
11643 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
11644 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
11645 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
11646 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
11647 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
11648 mounted inside my box.</p>
11649
11650 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
11651 Software RAID in the
11652 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
11653 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
11654 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
11655 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
11656 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
11657 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
11658
11659       </div>
11660       <div class="tags">
11661
11662
11663         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>.
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/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
11673       </div>
11674       <div class="date">
11675         13th February 2012
11676       </div>
11677       <div class="body">
11678         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
11679 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
11680 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
11681 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
11682 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
11683 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
11684 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
11685 change the global proxy setting by editing
11686 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
11687 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
11688
11689 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
11690 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
11691 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
11692
11693 <blockquote><pre>
11694 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
11695 {
11696    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
11697        isPlainHostName(host) ||
11698        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
11699       return "DIRECT";
11700    else
11701       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
11702 }
11703 </pre></blockquote>
11704
11705 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
11706
11707 <blockquote><pre>
11708 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
11709 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
11710 </pre></blockquote>
11711
11712 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
11713 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
11714 would be used for
11715 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
11716 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
11717 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
11718 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
11719 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
11720 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
11721 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
11722 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
11723 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
11724 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
11725
11726 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
11727 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
11728 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
11729 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
11730 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
11731 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
11732
11733 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
11734 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
11735 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
11736 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
11737 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
11738 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
11739 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
11740 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
11741 the network setup changes.</p>
11742
11743 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
11744 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
11745 draft</a> and a
11746 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
11747 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
11748
11749       </div>
11750       <div class="tags">
11751
11752
11753         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11754
11755
11756       </div>
11757     </div>
11758     <div class="padding"></div>
11759
11760     <div class="entry">
11761       <div class="title">
11762         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Saving_power_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_using_shutdown_at_night.html">Saving power with Debian Edu / Skolelinux using shutdown-at-night</a>
11763       </div>
11764       <div class="date">
11765          5th February 2012
11766       </div>
11767       <div class="body">
11768         <p>Since the Lenny version of
11769 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
11770 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
11771 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
11772 in the morning.  This is done using the
11773 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
11774
11775 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
11776 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
11777 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
11778 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
11779 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
11780 the
11781 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
11782 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
11783 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
11784 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
11785 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
11786
11787 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
11788 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
11789 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
11790 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
11791 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
11792 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
11793 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
11794
11795 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
11796 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
11797 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
11798 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
11799 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
11800
11801       </div>
11802       <div class="tags">
11803
11804
11805         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11806
11807
11808       </div>
11809     </div>
11810     <div class="padding"></div>
11811
11812     <div class="entry">
11813       <div class="title">
11814         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Third beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
11815       </div>
11816       <div class="date">
11817          4th February 2012
11818       </div>
11819       <div class="body">
11820         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
11821 publish the third beta version of
11822 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
11823 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
11824 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
11825 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
11826 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
11827 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
11828 on the project announcement list.</p>
11829
11830 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
11831 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
11832
11833 <ul>
11834
11835 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
11836   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
11837   the installation.</li>
11838
11839 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
11840   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
11841
11842 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
11843   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
11844   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
11845
11846 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
11847   for the local system administrator is created during installation
11848   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
11849   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
11850   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
11851   up to date on the system.</li>
11852
11853 </ul>
11854
11855 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
11856 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
11857 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
11858 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
11859
11860 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
11861 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
11862 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
11863 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
11864 will see you there?</p>
11865
11866       </div>
11867       <div class="tags">
11868
11869
11870         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11871
11872
11873       </div>
11874     </div>
11875     <div class="padding"></div>
11876
11877     <div class="entry">
11878       <div class="title">
11879         <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>
11880       </div>
11881       <div class="date">
11882         27th January 2012
11883       </div>
11884       <div class="body">
11885         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
11886 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
11887 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
11888 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
11889 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
11890 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
11891 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
11892
11893 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
11894 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
11895 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
11896 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
11897 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
11898 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
11899 not taken care of by this.</p>
11900
11901 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
11902 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
11903 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
11904 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
11905 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
11906 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
11907 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
11908 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
11909 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
11910 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
11911 firmware packages.</p>
11912
11913 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
11914 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
11915 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
11916 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
11917 initrd with extra firmware, the
11918 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
11919 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
11920 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
11921
11922 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
11923 network cards working.  For this,
11924 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
11925 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
11926 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
11927
11928 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
11929 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
11930 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
11931
11932 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
11933 try.</p>
11934
11935       </div>
11936       <div class="tags">
11937
11938
11939         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11940
11941
11942       </div>
11943     </div>
11944     <div class="padding"></div>
11945
11946     <div class="entry">
11947       <div class="title">
11948         <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>
11949       </div>
11950       <div class="date">
11951         25th January 2012
11952       </div>
11953       <div class="body">
11954         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
11955 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
11956 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
11957 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
11958 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
11959
11960 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
11961 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
11962 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
11963 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
11964 this is done, log on to the central server and run
11965 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
11966 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
11967 will look similar to this:</p>
11968
11969 <p><blockquote><pre>
11970 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
11971 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
11972 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.
11973
11974 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
11975
11976 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11977 enter password: *******
11978 %
11979 </pre></blockquote></p>
11980
11981 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
11982 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
11983 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
11984 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
11985 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
11986 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
11987 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
11988 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
11989 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
11990 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
11991 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
11992 automatically.</p>
11993
11994 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
11995 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
11996
11997 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
11998 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
11999 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
12000
12001       </div>
12002       <div class="tags">
12003
12004
12005         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12006
12007
12008       </div>
12009     </div>
12010     <div class="padding"></div>
12011
12012     <div class="entry">
12013       <div class="title">
12014         <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>
12015       </div>
12016       <div class="date">
12017         10th January 2012
12018       </div>
12019       <div class="body">
12020         <p>In the Squeeze version of
12021 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
12022 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
12023 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
12024 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
12025 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
12026 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
12027 first time.</p>
12028
12029 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
12030 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
12031 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
12032 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
12033
12034 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
12035 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
12036 new setting.</p>
12037
12038 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
12039 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
12040 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
12041
12042       </div>
12043       <div class="tags">
12044
12045
12046         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12047
12048
12049       </div>
12050     </div>
12051     <div class="padding"></div>
12052
12053     <div class="entry">
12054       <div class="title">
12055         <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>
12056       </div>
12057       <div class="date">
12058          7th January 2012
12059       </div>
12060       <div class="body">
12061         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
12062 the second beta version of
12063 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
12064 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
12065 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
12066 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
12067 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
12068 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
12069 on the project announcement list.</p>
12070
12071       </div>
12072       <div class="tags">
12073
12074
12075         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12076
12077
12078       </div>
12079     </div>
12080     <div class="padding"></div>
12081
12082     <div class="entry">
12083       <div class="title">
12084         <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>
12085       </div>
12086       <div class="date">
12087          3rd January 2012
12088       </div>
12089       <div class="body">
12090         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
12091 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
12092 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
12093 interesting.</p>
12094
12095 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
12096 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
12097 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
12098 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
12099 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
12100 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
12101 wrap up its tasks.</p>
12102
12103 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
12104 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
12105 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
12106 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
12107 because I was typing.</P>
12108
12109 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
12110 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
12111 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
12112 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
12113 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
12114 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
12115 generate entropy.</p>
12116
12117 <p>The fix is in
12118 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
12119 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
12120 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
12121 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
12122
12123       </div>
12124       <div class="tags">
12125
12126
12127         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12128
12129
12130       </div>
12131     </div>
12132     <div class="padding"></div>
12133
12134     <div class="entry">
12135       <div class="title">
12136         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
12137       </div>
12138       <div class="date">
12139         21st November 2011
12140       </div>
12141       <div class="body">
12142         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
12143 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
12144 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
12145 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
12146 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
12147 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
12148 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
12149 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
12150 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
12151 the tools to do so.</p>
12152
12153 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
12154 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
12155 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
12156 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
12157
12158 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
12159 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
12160 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
12161 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
12162 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
12163 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
12164 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
12165 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
12166
12167 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
12168 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
12169 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
12170
12171 <p><pre>
12172 #!/usr/bin/perl
12173 use strict;
12174 use warnings;
12175 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
12176 BEGIN {
12177     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
12178     my %rhelmodules = (
12179         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
12180         );
12181     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
12182         eval "use $module;";
12183         if ($@) {
12184             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
12185             system("yum install -y $pkg");
12186             eval "use $module;";
12187         }
12188     }
12189 }
12190 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
12191
12192 upgrade_dell();
12193
12194 exit 0;
12195
12196 sub run_firmware_script {
12197     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
12198     unless ($script) {
12199         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
12200         exit 1
12201     }
12202     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
12203
12204     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
12205         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
12206     } else {
12207         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
12208     }
12209 }
12210
12211 sub run_firmware_scripts {
12212     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
12213     # Run firmware packages
12214     for my $dir (@dirs) {
12215         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
12216         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
12217         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
12218             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
12219             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
12220         }
12221         closedir $dh;
12222     }
12223 }
12224
12225 sub download {
12226     my $url = shift;
12227     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
12228     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
12229 }
12230
12231 sub upgrade_dell {
12232     my @dirs;
12233     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
12234     chomp $product;
12235
12236     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
12237
12238         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
12239         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
12240
12241         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
12242             CLEANUP => 1
12243             );
12244         chdir($tmpdir);
12245         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
12246         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
12247         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
12248         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
12249         my $fwopts = "-q";
12250         if (@paths) {
12251             for my $url (@paths) {
12252                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
12253             }
12254             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
12255         } else {
12256             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
12257             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
12258         }
12259         chdir('/');
12260     } else {
12261         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
12262         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
12263     }
12264 }
12265
12266 sub fetch_dell_fw {
12267     my $path = shift;
12268     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
12269     download($url);
12270 }
12271
12272 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
12273 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
12274 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
12275 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
12276     my $filename = shift;
12277
12278     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
12279     chomp $product;
12280     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
12281
12282     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
12283
12284     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
12285     my @paths;
12286     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
12287         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
12288         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
12289         my $oscode;
12290         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
12291             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
12292         } else {
12293             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
12294         }
12295         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
12296         {
12297             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
12298         }
12299     }
12300     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
12301         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
12302
12303         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
12304         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
12305
12306         my $cpath = $component->{path};
12307         for my $path (@paths) {
12308             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
12309                 push(@paths, $cpath);
12310             }
12311         }
12312     }
12313     return @paths;
12314 }
12315 </pre>
12316
12317 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
12318 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
12319 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
12320 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
12321 outdated.</p>
12322
12323       </div>
12324       <div class="tags">
12325
12326
12327         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>.
12328
12329
12330       </div>
12331     </div>
12332     <div class="padding"></div>
12333
12334     <div class="entry">
12335       <div class="title">
12336         <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>
12337       </div>
12338       <div class="date">
12339          7th October 2011
12340       </div>
12341       <div class="body">
12342         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
12343 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
12344 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
12345 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
12346 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
12347 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
12348 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
12349 models.</p>
12350
12351 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
12352 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
12353 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
12354 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
12355
12356 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
12357 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
12358 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
12359 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
12360 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
12361 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
12362 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
12363 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
12364 distributed.</p>
12365
12366 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
12367
12368 <ul>
12369
12370 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
12371   other relevant equipment.</li>
12372
12373 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
12374
12375 </ul>
12376
12377 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
12378 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
12379 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
12380 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
12381 books available.</p>
12382
12383 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
12384 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
12385 libraries. :)</p>
12386
12387       </div>
12388       <div class="tags">
12389
12390
12391         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>.
12392
12393
12394       </div>
12395     </div>
12396     <div class="padding"></div>
12397
12398     <div class="entry">
12399       <div class="title">
12400         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
12401       </div>
12402       <div class="date">
12403         17th September 2011
12404       </div>
12405       <div class="body">
12406         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
12407 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
12408 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
12409 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
12410 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
12411 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
12412 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
12413 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
12414
12415 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
12416
12417 <blockquote><pre>
12418 #!/bin/sh
12419 # apt-get install lsdvd
12420 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
12421 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
12422 </pre></blockquote>
12423
12424 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
12425 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
12426 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
12427 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
12428
12429 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
12430 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
12431 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
12432 back as an ISO.
12433
12434 <blockquote><pre>
12435 #!/bin/sh
12436 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
12437 set -e
12438 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
12439 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
12440 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
12441 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
12442 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
12443 </pre></blockquote>
12444
12445 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
12446
12447 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
12448 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
12449 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
12450 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
12451 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
12452
12453 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
12454 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
12455 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
12456 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
12457 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
12458 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
12459
12460       </div>
12461       <div class="tags">
12462
12463
12464         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>.
12465
12466
12467       </div>
12468     </div>
12469     <div class="padding"></div>
12470
12471     <div class="entry">
12472       <div class="title">
12473         <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>
12474       </div>
12475       <div class="date">
12476          4th August 2011
12477       </div>
12478       <div class="body">
12479         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
12480 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
12481 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
12482 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
12483 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
12484 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
12485 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
12486 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
12487 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
12488
12489 <p><blockquote>
12490 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
12491 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
12492 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
12493 </blockquote></p>
12494
12495 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
12496 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
12497 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
12498 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
12499 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
12500 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
12501 hard to explain.</p>
12502
12503 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
12504 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
12505 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
12506 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
12507 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
12508 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
12509 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
12510 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
12511 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
12512 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
12513 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
12514 mode).</p>
12515
12516 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
12517 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
12518 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
12519 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
12520 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
12521 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
12522 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
12523 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
12524 after visiting single user mode.</p>
12525
12526 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
12527 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
12528 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
12529 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
12530 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
12531 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
12532 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
12533 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
12534
12535 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
12536 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
12537 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
12538
12539       </div>
12540       <div class="tags">
12541
12542
12543         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>.
12544
12545
12546       </div>
12547     </div>
12548     <div class="padding"></div>
12549
12550     <div class="entry">
12551       <div class="title">
12552         <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>
12553       </div>
12554       <div class="date">
12555         30th July 2011
12556       </div>
12557       <div class="body">
12558         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
12559 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
12560 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
12561 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
12562 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
12563 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
12564 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
12565 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
12566 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
12567 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
12568 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
12569 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
12570 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
12571
12572 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
12573 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
12574 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
12575 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
12576 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
12577 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
12578 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
12579 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
12580 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
12581
12582 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
12583 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
12584 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
12585 is presented.</p>
12586
12587 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
12588 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
12589 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
12590 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
12591 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
12592 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
12593 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
12594 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
12595 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
12596 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
12597 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
12598 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
12599 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
12600 find time to push this forward.</p>
12601
12602       </div>
12603       <div class="tags">
12604
12605
12606         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>.
12607
12608
12609       </div>
12610     </div>
12611     <div class="padding"></div>
12612
12613     <div class="entry">
12614       <div class="title">
12615         <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>
12616       </div>
12617       <div class="date">
12618         29th July 2011
12619       </div>
12620       <div class="body">
12621         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
12622 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
12623 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
12624 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
12625 issues.</p>
12626
12627 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
12628 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
12629 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
12630
12631 <ol>
12632
12633 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
12634 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
12635 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
12636 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
12637 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
12638 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
12639 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
12640 Debian.</li>
12641
12642 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
12643 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
12644 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
12645 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
12646 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
12647 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
12648 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
12649 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
12650 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
12651 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
12652 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
12653 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
12654 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
12655
12656 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
12657 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
12658 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
12659 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
12660 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
12661 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
12662 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
12663 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
12664 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
12665 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
12666
12667 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
12668 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
12669 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
12670 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
12671 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
12672 latter behaviour.</li>
12673
12674 </ol>
12675
12676 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
12677 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
12678 it do not matter much.</p>
12679
12680 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
12681 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
12682 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
12683
12684       </div>
12685       <div class="tags">
12686
12687
12688         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>.
12689
12690
12691       </div>
12692     </div>
12693     <div class="padding"></div>
12694
12695     <div class="entry">
12696       <div class="title">
12697         <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>
12698       </div>
12699       <div class="date">
12700         26th July 2011
12701       </div>
12702       <div class="body">
12703         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
12704 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
12705 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
12706 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
12707 security support for a few years.</p>
12708
12709 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
12710 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
12711 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
12712 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
12713 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
12714 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
12715 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
12716 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
12717 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
12718 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
12719 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
12720 easier in the future.</p>
12721
12722 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
12723 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
12724 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
12725 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
12726 do not have time for.</p>
12727
12728       </div>
12729       <div class="tags">
12730
12731
12732         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>.
12733
12734
12735       </div>
12736     </div>
12737     <div class="padding"></div>
12738
12739     <div class="entry">
12740       <div class="title">
12741         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
12742       </div>
12743       <div class="date">
12744         20th June 2011
12745       </div>
12746       <div class="body">
12747         <p>Reading
12748 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
12749 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
12750 parts of the
12751 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
12752 and
12753 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
12754 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
12755 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
12756 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
12757
12758       </div>
12759       <div class="tags">
12760
12761
12762         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>.
12763
12764
12765       </div>
12766     </div>
12767     <div class="padding"></div>
12768
12769     <div class="entry">
12770       <div class="title">
12771         <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>
12772       </div>
12773       <div class="date">
12774         30th April 2011
12775       </div>
12776       <div class="body">
12777         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
12778 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
12779 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
12780 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
12781 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
12782 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
12783 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
12784 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
12785 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
12786 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
12787
12788 <p>Where is it?  Visit
12789 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
12790 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
12791 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
12792 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
12793
12794       </div>
12795       <div class="tags">
12796
12797
12798         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>.
12799
12800
12801       </div>
12802     </div>
12803     <div class="padding"></div>
12804
12805     <div class="entry">
12806       <div class="title">
12807         <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>
12808       </div>
12809       <div class="date">
12810         29th April 2011
12811       </div>
12812       <div class="body">
12813         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
12814 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
12815 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
12816 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
12817 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
12818 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
12819 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
12820 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
12821 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
12822 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
12823 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
12824 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
12825 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
12826
12827 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
12828 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
12829 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
12830 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
12831 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
12832 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
12833 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
12834 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
12835 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
12836 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
12837 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
12838 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
12839 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
12840
12841 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
12842 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
12843 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
12844 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
12845 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
12846 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
12847 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
12848 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
12849 it.</p>
12850
12851 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
12852 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
12853 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
12854 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
12855 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
12856 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
12857 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
12858
12859 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
12860 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
12861 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
12862 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
12863 and range= options.</p>
12864
12865 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
12866 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
12867 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
12868 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
12869 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
12870 to best handle this.  I've noticed
12871 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
12872 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
12873 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
12874 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
12875
12876 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
12877 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
12878 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
12879 discussions instead of only
12880 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
12881 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
12882 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
12883 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
12884 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
12885 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
12886
12887       </div>
12888       <div class="tags">
12889
12890
12891         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>.
12892
12893
12894       </div>
12895     </div>
12896     <div class="padding"></div>
12897
12898     <div class="entry">
12899       <div class="title">
12900         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
12901       </div>
12902       <div class="date">
12903          6th April 2011
12904       </div>
12905       <div class="body">
12906         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
12907 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
12908 A few days ago the project
12909 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
12910 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
12911 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
12912 into Gnash.</p>
12913
12914       </div>
12915       <div class="tags">
12916
12917
12918         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>.
12919
12920
12921       </div>
12922     </div>
12923     <div class="padding"></div>
12924
12925     <div class="entry">
12926       <div class="title">
12927         <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>
12928       </div>
12929       <div class="date">
12930          3rd April 2011
12931       </div>
12932       <div class="body">
12933         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
12934 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
12935 update in English.</p>
12936
12937 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
12938 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
12939 of the British service
12940 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
12941 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
12942 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
12943 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
12944 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
12945 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
12946 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
12947 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
12948 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
12949 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
12950 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
12951 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
12952 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
12953
12954 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
12955 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
12956 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
12957 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
12958 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
12959 public infrastructure.</p>
12960
12961 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
12962 such service?</p>
12963
12964       </div>
12965       <div class="tags">
12966
12967
12968         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>.
12969
12970
12971       </div>
12972     </div>
12973     <div class="padding"></div>
12974
12975     <div class="entry">
12976       <div class="title">
12977         <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>
12978       </div>
12979       <div class="date">
12980         28th January 2011
12981       </div>
12982       <div class="body">
12983         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
12984 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
12985 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
12986 available on the Internet, and check our locally
12987 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
12988 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
12989 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
12990 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
12991 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
12992 out which security holes were present in our free software
12993 collection.</p>
12994
12995 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
12996 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
12997 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
12998 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
12999 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
13000 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
13001 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
13002 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
13003 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
13004 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
13005 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
13006 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
13007 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
13008 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
13009 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
13010 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
13011
13012 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
13013 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
13014 check out, one could look up
13015 <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
13016 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
13017 The most recent one is
13018 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
13019 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
13020 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
13021
13022 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
13023 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
13024 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
13025 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
13026 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
13027 security issues out.</p>
13028
13029 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
13030 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
13031 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
13032 RHEL is providing
13033 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
13034 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
13035 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
13036
13037 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
13038 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
13039 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
13040 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
13041 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
13042 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
13043 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
13044 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
13045 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
13046 established soon.</p>
13047
13048 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
13049 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
13050 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
13051 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
13052 for their packages.</p>
13053
13054       </div>
13055       <div class="tags">
13056
13057
13058         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>.
13059
13060
13061       </div>
13062     </div>
13063     <div class="padding"></div>
13064
13065     <div class="entry">
13066       <div class="title">
13067         <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>
13068       </div>
13069       <div class="date">
13070         23rd January 2011
13071       </div>
13072       <div class="body">
13073         <p>In the
13074 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
13075 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
13076 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
13077 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
13078 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
13079 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
13080 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
13081 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
13082 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
13083 one of my machines like this:</p>
13084
13085 <pre>
13086 loaded modules:
13087 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
13088 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
13089 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
13090 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
13091 10de:03ec pata_amd
13092 10de:03f6 sata_nv
13093 1022:1103 k8temp
13094 109e:036e bttv
13095 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
13096 11ab:4364 sky2
13097 </pre>
13098
13099 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
13100 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
13101
13102 <pre>
13103 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
13104     echo loaded pci modules:
13105     (
13106         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
13107         for address in * ; do
13108             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
13109                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
13110                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
13111                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
13112                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
13113                     echo "$id $module"
13114                 fi
13115             fi
13116         done
13117     )
13118     echo
13119 fi
13120 </pre>
13121
13122 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
13123 mappings:</p>
13124
13125 <pre>
13126 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
13127     echo loaded usb modules:
13128     (
13129         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
13130         for address in * ; do
13131             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
13132                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
13133                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
13134                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
13135                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
13136                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
13137                         echo "$id $module"
13138                     fi
13139                 fi
13140             fi
13141         done
13142     )
13143     echo
13144 fi
13145 </pre>
13146
13147 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
13148 well.</p>
13149
13150       </div>
13151       <div class="tags">
13152
13153
13154         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>.
13155
13156
13157       </div>
13158     </div>
13159     <div class="padding"></div>
13160
13161     <div class="entry">
13162       <div class="title">
13163         <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>
13164       </div>
13165       <div class="date">
13166         16th January 2011
13167       </div>
13168       <div class="body">
13169         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
13170 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
13171 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
13172 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
13173 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
13174 the Wikipedia article on
13175 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
13176 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
13177 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
13178 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
13179 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
13180 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
13181 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
13182 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
13183 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
13184 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
13185 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
13186 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
13187
13188 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
13189 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
13190 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
13191 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
13192 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
13193 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
13194 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
13195 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
13196 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
13197 from last week</a>.</p>
13198
13199 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
13200 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
13201 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
13202 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
13203 was without royalties and license terms, check out
13204 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
13205 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
13206
13207 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
13208 available from
13209 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
13210 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
13211 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
13212
13213 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
13214 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
13215 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
13216 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
13217
13218       </div>
13219       <div class="tags">
13220
13221
13222         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>.
13223
13224
13225       </div>
13226     </div>
13227     <div class="padding"></div>
13228
13229     <div class="entry">
13230       <div class="title">
13231         <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>
13232       </div>
13233       <div class="date">
13234         12th January 2011
13235       </div>
13236       <div class="body">
13237         <p>Today I discovered
13238 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
13239 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
13240 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
13241 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
13242 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
13243 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
13244 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
13245 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
13246 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
13247 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
13248 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
13249 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
13250 on the Google announcement is available from
13251 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
13252 A good read. :)</p>
13253
13254 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
13255 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
13256 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
13257 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
13258 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
13259 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
13260 browsers support H.264, and others support
13261 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
13262 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
13263 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
13264 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
13265 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
13266 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
13267 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
13268 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
13269
13270 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
13271 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
13272 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
13273 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
13274 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
13275 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
13276 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
13277
13278 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
13279 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
13280 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
13281 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
13282 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
13283 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
13284 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
13285
13286 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
13287 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
13288 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
13289 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
13290 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
13291 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
13292 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
13293
13294 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
13295 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
13296 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
13297 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
13298 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
13299 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
13300 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
13301 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
13302 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
13303 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
13304 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
13305 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
13306 I guess time will tell.</p>
13307
13308 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
13309 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
13310 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
13311
13312       </div>
13313       <div class="tags">
13314
13315
13316         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>.
13317
13318
13319       </div>
13320     </div>
13321     <div class="padding"></div>
13322
13323     <div class="entry">
13324       <div class="title">
13325         <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>
13326       </div>
13327       <div class="date">
13328         30th December 2010
13329       </div>
13330       <div class="body">
13331         <p>After trying to
13332 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
13333 Ogg Theora</a> to
13334 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
13335 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
13336 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
13337 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
13338 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
13339 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
13340 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
13341
13342 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
13343 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
13344 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
13345 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
13346 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
13347 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
13348 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
13349
13350 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
13351 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
13352
13353       </div>
13354       <div class="tags">
13355
13356
13357         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>.
13358
13359
13360       </div>
13361     </div>
13362     <div class="padding"></div>
13363
13364     <div class="entry">
13365       <div class="title">
13366         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
13367       </div>
13368       <div class="date">
13369         27th December 2010
13370       </div>
13371       <div class="body">
13372         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
13373 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
13374 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
13375 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
13376 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
13377 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
13378 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
13379 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
13380
13381 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
13382 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
13383 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
13384 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
13385 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
13386 page</a>.</p>
13387
13388 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
13389 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
13390 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
13391 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
13392 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
13393 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
13394 specification on equal terms.</p>
13395
13396 <blockquote>
13397
13398 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
13399 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
13400 open standard:</p>
13401
13402 <ul>
13403
13404 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
13405 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
13406 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
13407 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
13408
13409 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
13410 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
13411 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
13412 nominal fee.</li>
13413
13414 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
13415 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
13416 free basis.</li>
13417
13418 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
13419
13420 </ul>
13421 </blockquote>
13422
13423 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
13424 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
13425 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
13426 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
13427 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
13428 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
13429 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
13430
13431 <blockquote>
13432
13433 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
13434
13435 <ol>
13436
13437 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
13438 tilgængelig.</li>
13439
13440 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
13441 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
13442
13443 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
13444 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
13445
13446 </ol>
13447
13448 </blockquote>
13449
13450 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
13451 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
13452
13453 <blockquote>
13454
13455 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
13456
13457 <ol>
13458
13459 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
13460 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
13461
13462 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
13463 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
13464 Standard themselves;</li>
13465
13466 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
13467 any party or in any business model;</li>
13468
13469 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
13470 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
13471 parties;</li>
13472
13473 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
13474 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
13475 parties.</li>
13476
13477 </ol>
13478
13479 </blockquote>
13480
13481 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
13482 its
13483 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
13484 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
13485
13486 <blockquote>
13487 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
13488
13489 <ul>
13490
13491 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
13492   democratic:
13493
13494          <ul>
13495
13496          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
13497             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
13498             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
13499             and managed.</li>
13500
13501          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
13502             method, can be changed through input from all
13503             participants.</li>
13504
13505          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
13506             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
13507
13508          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
13509             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
13510
13511          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
13512             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
13513             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
13514
13515          </ul>
13516
13517 </li>
13518
13519 </ul>
13520
13521 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
13522 <ul>
13523
13524 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
13525   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
13526   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
13527   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
13528   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
13529
13530 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
13531   a technical or economic barriers</li>
13532
13533 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
13534   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
13535   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
13536   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
13537   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
13538   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
13539   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
13540   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
13541   intended to function.</li>
13542
13543 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
13544   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
13545   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
13546
13547 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
13548   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
13549   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
13550   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
13551   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
13552   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
13553   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
13554   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
13555
13556       <ul>
13557
13558       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
13559         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
13560         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
13561
13562       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
13563         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
13564         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
13565         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
13566
13567       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
13568         licensor</li>
13569
13570       </ul>
13571 </li>
13572
13573 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
13574   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
13575   or restricted licensing terms</li>
13576
13577 </ul>
13578
13579 </blockquote>
13580
13581 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
13582 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
13583 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
13584 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
13585 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
13586 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
13587 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
13588 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
13589 Standards.</p>
13590
13591       </div>
13592       <div class="tags">
13593
13594
13595         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>.
13596
13597
13598       </div>
13599     </div>
13600     <div class="padding"></div>
13601
13602     <div class="entry">
13603       <div class="title">
13604         <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>
13605       </div>
13606       <div class="date">
13607         25th December 2010
13608       </div>
13609       <div class="body">
13610         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
13611 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
13612
13613 <blockquote>
13614
13615 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
13616 as follows:</p>
13617
13618 <ol>
13619
13620 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
13621 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
13622 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
13623
13624 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
13625 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
13626 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
13627 parties.</li>
13628
13629 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
13630 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
13631 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
13632
13633 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
13634 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
13635
13636 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
13637
13638 </ol>
13639
13640 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
13641 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
13642 products based on the standard.</p>
13643 </blockquote>
13644
13645 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
13646 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
13647 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
13648 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
13649 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
13650 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
13651 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
13652 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
13653
13654 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
13655
13656 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
13657 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
13658 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
13659 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
13660 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
13661 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
13662 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
13663 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
13664 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
13665 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
13666 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
13667 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
13668 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
13669 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
13670
13671 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
13672
13673 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
13674 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
13675 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
13676 documentation indicating this.</p>
13677
13678 <p>According to
13679 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
13680 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
13681 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
13682 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
13683 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
13684 report is correct.</p>
13685
13686 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
13687
13688 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
13689 container format</a> and both the
13690 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
13691 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
13692 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
13693
13694 <blockquote>
13695
13696 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
13697 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
13698 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
13699 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
13700 specification compliance.
13701
13702 </blockquote>
13703
13704 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
13705 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
13706 this is the term:<p>
13707
13708 <blockquote>
13709
13710 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
13711 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
13712 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
13713 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
13714 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
13715 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
13716 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
13717 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
13718 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
13719 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
13720 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
13721 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
13722
13723 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
13724 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
13725 </blockquote>
13726
13727 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
13728 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
13729 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
13730 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
13731 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
13732
13733 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
13734
13735 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
13736 Theora format.
13737 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
13738 and
13739 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
13740 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
13741 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
13742 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
13743 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
13744 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
13745 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
13746 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
13747
13748 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
13749
13750 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
13751
13752 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
13753
13754 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
13755 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
13756 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
13757 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
13758 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
13759 this.</p>
13760
13761 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
13762 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
13763
13764       </div>
13765       <div class="tags">
13766
13767
13768         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>.
13769
13770
13771       </div>
13772     </div>
13773     <div class="padding"></div>
13774
13775     <div class="entry">
13776       <div class="title">
13777         <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>
13778       </div>
13779       <div class="date">
13780         25th December 2010
13781       </div>
13782       <div class="body">
13783         <p>A few days ago
13784 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
13785 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
13786 2.0 of
13787 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
13788 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
13789 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
13790 Nothing very surprising there, given
13791 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
13792 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
13793 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
13794 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
13795 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
13796 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
13797 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
13798 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
13799 standard definition from its content.</p>
13800
13801 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
13802 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
13803 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
13804 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
13805 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
13806 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
13807 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
13808 background information about that story is available in
13809 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
13810 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
13811
13812 <blockquote>
13813 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
13814 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
13815 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
13816
13817 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
13818
13819 <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>
13820
13821 <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>
13822
13823 <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>
13824
13825 <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>
13826
13827 <p>
13828 <ul>
13829 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
13830 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
13831 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
13832 </ul>
13833 </p>
13834
13835 <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>
13836
13837 <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>
13838
13839 <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>
13840
13841 <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>
13842
13843 <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>
13844
13845
13846 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
13847 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
13848 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
13849 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
13850 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
13851 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
13852
13853 </p>
13854
13855 <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>
13856
13857 <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>
13858
13859 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
13860
13861 <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>
13862
13863 <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>
13864
13865 <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>
13866
13867 <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>
13868
13869 <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>
13870
13871 <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>
13872
13873 <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>
13874
13875 <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>
13876
13877 <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>
13878
13879 <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>
13880
13881 <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>
13882
13883 <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>
13884
13885 <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>
13886
13887 <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>
13888
13889 <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>
13890
13891 <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>
13892
13893 <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>
13894
13895 <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>
13896
13897 <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>
13898
13899 <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>
13900
13901 <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>
13902
13903 <p>On security:</p>
13904
13905 <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>
13906
13907 <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>
13908
13909 <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>
13910
13911 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
13912
13913 <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>
13914
13915 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
13916
13917 <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>
13918
13919 <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>
13920
13921 <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>
13922
13923 <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>
13924
13925 <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>
13926
13927 <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>
13928
13929 <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>
13930
13931 <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>
13932
13933 <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>
13934
13935 <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>
13936
13937 <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>
13938
13939 <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>
13940
13941 <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>
13942
13943 <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>
13944
13945 <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>
13946
13947 <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>
13948
13949 <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>
13950
13951 <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>
13952
13953 <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>
13954
13955 <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>
13956
13957 <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>
13958
13959 <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>
13960
13961 <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>
13962
13963 <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>
13964
13965 <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>
13966
13967 <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>
13968
13969 <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>
13970
13971 <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>
13972
13973 <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>
13974
13975 <p>Cordially,<br>
13976 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
13977 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
13978 </blockquote>
13979
13980       </div>
13981       <div class="tags">
13982
13983
13984         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>.
13985
13986
13987       </div>
13988     </div>
13989     <div class="padding"></div>
13990
13991     <div class="entry">
13992       <div class="title">
13993         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
13994       </div>
13995       <div class="date">
13996         25th December 2010
13997       </div>
13998       <div class="body">
13999         <p>Half a year ago I
14000 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
14001 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
14002 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
14003 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
14004
14005 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
14006 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
14007 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
14008 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
14009 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
14010 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
14011 got such a great test tool available.</p>
14012
14013       </div>
14014       <div class="tags">
14015
14016
14017         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>.
14018
14019
14020       </div>
14021     </div>
14022     <div class="padding"></div>
14023
14024     <div class="entry">
14025       <div class="title">
14026         <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>
14027       </div>
14028       <div class="date">
14029         22nd December 2010
14030       </div>
14031       <div class="body">
14032         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
14033 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
14034 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
14035 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
14036 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
14037 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
14038 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
14039 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
14040 university.</p>
14041
14042 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
14043 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
14044 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
14045 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
14046 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
14047 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
14048 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
14049 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
14050
14051 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
14052 I perform on a new model.</p>
14053
14054 <ul>
14055
14056 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
14057 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
14058 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
14059
14060 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
14061 installation, X.org is working.</li>
14062
14063 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
14064 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
14065 reported by the program.</li>
14066
14067 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
14068 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
14069 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
14070 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
14071 normally test this by playing
14072 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
14073 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
14074
14075 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
14076 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
14077
14078 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
14079 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
14080
14081 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
14082 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
14083
14084 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
14085 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
14086 few.</li>
14087
14088 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
14089 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
14090 notice this.</li>
14091
14092 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
14093 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
14094 resume.</li>
14095
14096 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
14097 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
14098 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
14099 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
14100 not.</li>
14101
14102 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
14103 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
14104 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
14105 existence.</li>
14106
14107 </ul>
14108
14109 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
14110 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
14111 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
14112 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
14113 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
14114 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
14115 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
14116 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
14117
14118       </div>
14119       <div class="tags">
14120
14121
14122         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>.
14123
14124
14125       </div>
14126     </div>
14127     <div class="padding"></div>
14128
14129     <div class="entry">
14130       <div class="title">
14131         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
14132       </div>
14133       <div class="date">
14134         11th December 2010
14135       </div>
14136       <div class="body">
14137         <p>As I continue to explore
14138 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
14139 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
14140 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
14141
14142 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
14143 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
14144 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
14145 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
14146 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
14147 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
14148 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
14149 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
14150 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
14151 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
14152 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
14153 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
14154 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
14155 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
14156 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
14157 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
14158 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
14159 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
14160 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
14161 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
14162
14163 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
14164 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
14165 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
14166 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
14167 If the Skolelinux foundation
14168 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
14169 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
14170 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
14171 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
14172 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
14173 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
14174 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
14175 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
14176
14177 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
14178 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
14179 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
14180 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
14181 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
14182 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
14183 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
14184 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
14185 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
14186 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
14187 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
14188 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
14189 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
14190 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
14191 currencies.</p>
14192
14193 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
14194 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
14195 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
14196 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
14197 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
14198 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
14199 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
14200 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
14201 BitCoins.  Check out
14202 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
14203 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
14204 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
14205 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
14206 yet.</p>
14207
14208 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
14209 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
14210 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
14211 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
14212 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
14213
14214       </div>
14215       <div class="tags">
14216
14217
14218         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>.
14219
14220
14221       </div>
14222     </div>
14223     <div class="padding"></div>
14224
14225     <div class="entry">
14226       <div class="title">
14227         <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>
14228       </div>
14229       <div class="date">
14230         10th December 2010
14231       </div>
14232       <div class="body">
14233         <p>With this weeks lawless
14234 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
14235 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
14236 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
14237 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
14238 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
14239 A blog post from
14240 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
14241 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
14242 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
14243 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
14244 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
14245 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
14246 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
14247
14248 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
14249 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
14250 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
14251 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
14252 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
14253 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
14254 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
14255 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
14256 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
14257 Debian</a> soon.</p>
14258
14259 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
14260 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
14261 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
14262 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
14263 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
14264 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
14265 you can even get
14266 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
14267 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
14268 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
14269 on the current exchange rates.</p>
14270
14271 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
14272 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
14273 donations to the address
14274 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
14275
14276       </div>
14277       <div class="tags">
14278
14279
14280         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>.
14281
14282
14283       </div>
14284     </div>
14285     <div class="padding"></div>
14286
14287     <div class="entry">
14288       <div class="title">
14289         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Student_group_continue_the_work_on_my_Reprap_3D_printer.html">Student group continue the work on my Reprap 3D printer</a>
14290       </div>
14291       <div class="date">
14292          9th December 2010
14293       </div>
14294       <div class="body">
14295         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
14296 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
14297 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
14298 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
14299 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
14300 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
14301 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
14302 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
14303 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
14304 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
14305 operational.</p>
14306
14307 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
14308 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
14309 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
14310 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
14311 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
14312 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
14313 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
14314
14315       </div>
14316       <div class="tags">
14317
14318
14319         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>.
14320
14321
14322       </div>
14323     </div>
14324     <div class="padding"></div>
14325
14326     <div class="entry">
14327       <div class="title">
14328         <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>
14329       </div>
14330       <div class="date">
14331         29th November 2010
14332       </div>
14333       <div class="body">
14334         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
14335 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
14336 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
14337 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
14338 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
14339 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
14340
14341 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
14342 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
14343 will hold its
14344 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
14345 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
14346 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
14347 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
14348 vote this year.</p>
14349
14350       </div>
14351       <div class="tags">
14352
14353
14354         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
14355
14356
14357       </div>
14358     </div>
14359     <div class="padding"></div>
14360
14361     <div class="entry">
14362       <div class="title">
14363         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
14364       </div>
14365       <div class="date">
14366         27th November 2010
14367       </div>
14368       <div class="body">
14369         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
14370 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
14371 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
14372 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
14373 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
14374 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
14375 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
14376 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
14377
14378 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
14379 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
14380 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
14381 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
14382 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
14383 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
14384 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
14385 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
14386 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
14387 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
14388 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
14389
14390 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
14391 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
14392 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
14393 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
14394 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
14395 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
14396 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
14397 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
14398 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
14399 what is going on.</p>
14400
14401       </div>
14402       <div class="tags">
14403
14404
14405         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>.
14406
14407
14408       </div>
14409     </div>
14410     <div class="padding"></div>
14411
14412     <div class="entry">
14413       <div class="title">
14414         <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>
14415       </div>
14416       <div class="date">
14417         22nd November 2010
14418       </div>
14419       <div class="body">
14420         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
14421 upgrade testing of the
14422 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
14423 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
14424 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
14425 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
14426
14427 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
14428
14429 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
14430
14431 <blockquote><p>
14432   apache2.2-bin
14433   aptdaemon
14434   baobab
14435   binfmt-support
14436   browser-plugin-gnash
14437   cheese-common
14438   cli-common
14439   cups-pk-helper
14440   dmz-cursor-theme
14441   empathy
14442   empathy-common
14443   freedesktop-sound-theme
14444   freeglut3
14445   gconf-defaults-service
14446   gdm-themes
14447   gedit-plugins
14448   geoclue
14449   geoclue-hostip
14450   geoclue-localnet
14451   geoclue-manual
14452   geoclue-yahoo
14453   gnash
14454   gnash-common
14455   gnome
14456   gnome-backgrounds
14457   gnome-cards-data
14458   gnome-codec-install
14459   gnome-core
14460   gnome-desktop-environment
14461   gnome-disk-utility
14462   gnome-screenshot
14463   gnome-search-tool
14464   gnome-session-canberra
14465   gnome-system-log
14466   gnome-themes-extras
14467   gnome-themes-more
14468   gnome-user-share
14469   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
14470   gstreamer0.10-tools
14471   gtk2-engines
14472   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
14473   gtk2-engines-smooth
14474   hamster-applet
14475   libapache2-mod-dnssd
14476   libapr1
14477   libaprutil1
14478   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
14479   libaprutil1-ldap
14480   libart2.0-cil
14481   libboost-date-time1.42.0
14482   libboost-python1.42.0
14483   libboost-thread1.42.0
14484   libchamplain-0.4-0
14485   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
14486   libcheese-gtk18
14487   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
14488   libcryptui0
14489   libdiscid0
14490   libelf1
14491   libepc-1.0-2
14492   libepc-common
14493   libepc-ui-1.0-2
14494   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
14495   libfreerdp0
14496   libgconf2.0-cil
14497   libgdata-common
14498   libgdata7
14499   libgdu-gtk0
14500   libgee2
14501   libgeoclue0
14502   libgexiv2-0
14503   libgif4
14504   libglade2.0-cil
14505   libglib2.0-cil
14506   libgmime2.4-cil
14507   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
14508   libgnome2.24-cil
14509   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
14510   libgpod-common
14511   libgpod4
14512   libgtk2.0-cil
14513   libgtkglext1
14514   libgtksourceview2.0-common
14515   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
14516   libmono-addins0.2-cil
14517   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
14518   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
14519   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
14520   libmono-posix2.0-cil
14521   libmono-security2.0-cil
14522   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
14523   libmono-system2.0-cil
14524   libmtp8
14525   libmusicbrainz3-6
14526   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
14527   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
14528   libopal3.6.8
14529   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
14530   libpt2.6.7
14531   libpython2.6
14532   librpm1
14533   librpmio1
14534   libsdl1.2debian
14535   libsrtp0
14536   libssh-4
14537   libtelepathy-farsight0
14538   libtelepathy-glib0
14539   libtidy-0.99-0
14540   media-player-info
14541   mesa-utils
14542   mono-2.0-gac
14543   mono-gac
14544   mono-runtime
14545   nautilus-sendto
14546   nautilus-sendto-empathy
14547   p7zip-full
14548   pkg-config
14549   python-aptdaemon
14550   python-aptdaemon-gtk
14551   python-axiom
14552   python-beautifulsoup
14553   python-bugbuddy
14554   python-clientform
14555   python-coherence
14556   python-configobj
14557   python-crypto
14558   python-cupshelpers
14559   python-elementtree
14560   python-epsilon
14561   python-evolution
14562   python-feedparser
14563   python-gdata
14564   python-gdbm
14565   python-gst0.10
14566   python-gtkglext1
14567   python-gtksourceview2
14568   python-httplib2
14569   python-louie
14570   python-mako
14571   python-markupsafe
14572   python-mechanize
14573   python-nevow
14574   python-notify
14575   python-opengl
14576   python-openssl
14577   python-pam
14578   python-pkg-resources
14579   python-pyasn1
14580   python-pysqlite2
14581   python-rdflib
14582   python-serial
14583   python-tagpy
14584   python-twisted-bin
14585   python-twisted-conch
14586   python-twisted-core
14587   python-twisted-web
14588   python-utidylib
14589   python-webkit
14590   python-xdg
14591   python-zope.interface
14592   remmina
14593   remmina-plugin-data
14594   remmina-plugin-rdp
14595   remmina-plugin-vnc
14596   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
14597   rhythmbox-plugins
14598   rpm-common
14599   rpm2cpio
14600   seahorse-plugins
14601   shotwell
14602   software-center
14603   system-config-printer-udev
14604   telepathy-gabble
14605   telepathy-mission-control-5
14606   telepathy-salut
14607   tomboy
14608   totem
14609   totem-coherence
14610   totem-mozilla
14611   totem-plugins
14612   transmission-common
14613   xdg-user-dirs
14614   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
14615   xserver-xephyr
14616 </p></blockquote>
14617
14618 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
14619
14620 <blockquote><p>
14621   cheese
14622   ekiga
14623   eog
14624   epiphany-extensions
14625   evolution-exchange
14626   fast-user-switch-applet
14627   file-roller
14628   gcalctool
14629   gconf-editor
14630   gdm
14631   gedit
14632   gedit-common
14633   gnome-games
14634   gnome-games-data
14635   gnome-nettool
14636   gnome-system-tools
14637   gnome-themes
14638   gnuchess
14639   gucharmap
14640   guile-1.8-libs
14641   libavahi-ui0
14642   libdmx1
14643   libgalago3
14644   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
14645   libgtksourceview2.0-0
14646   liblircclient0
14647   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
14648   libspeexdsp1
14649   libsvga1
14650   rhythmbox
14651   seahorse
14652   sound-juicer
14653   system-config-printer
14654   totem-common
14655   transmission-gtk
14656   vinagre
14657   vino
14658 </p></blockquote>
14659
14660 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
14661
14662 <blockquote><p>
14663   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
14664 </p></blockquote>
14665
14666 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
14667
14668 <blockquote><p>
14669 [nothing]
14670 </p></blockquote>
14671
14672 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
14673
14674 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
14675
14676 <blockquote><p>
14677   ksmserver
14678 </p></blockquote>
14679
14680 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
14681
14682 <blockquote><p>
14683   kwin
14684   network-manager-kde
14685 </p></blockquote>
14686
14687 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
14688
14689 <blockquote><p>
14690   arts
14691   dolphin
14692   freespacenotifier
14693   google-gadgets-gst
14694   google-gadgets-xul
14695   kappfinder
14696   kcalc
14697   kcharselect
14698   kde-core
14699   kde-plasma-desktop
14700   kde-standard
14701   kde-window-manager
14702   kdeartwork
14703   kdeartwork-emoticons
14704   kdeartwork-style
14705   kdeartwork-theme-icon
14706   kdebase
14707   kdebase-apps
14708   kdebase-workspace
14709   kdebase-workspace-bin
14710   kdebase-workspace-data
14711   kdeeject
14712   kdelibs
14713   kdeplasma-addons
14714   kdeutils
14715   kdewallpapers
14716   kdf
14717   kfloppy
14718   kgpg
14719   khelpcenter4
14720   kinfocenter
14721   konq-plugins-l10n
14722   konqueror-nsplugins
14723   kscreensaver
14724   kscreensaver-xsavers
14725   ktimer
14726   kwrite
14727   libgle3
14728   libkde4-ruby1.8
14729   libkonq5
14730   libkonq5-templates
14731   libnetpbm10
14732   libplasma-ruby
14733   libplasma-ruby1.8
14734   libqt4-ruby1.8
14735   marble-data
14736   marble-plugins
14737   netpbm
14738   nuvola-icon-theme
14739   plasma-dataengines-workspace
14740   plasma-desktop
14741   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
14742   plasma-runners-addons
14743   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
14744   plasma-scriptengine-python
14745   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
14746   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
14747   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
14748   plasma-scriptengines
14749   plasma-wallpapers-addons
14750   plasma-widget-folderview
14751   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
14752   ruby
14753   sweeper
14754   update-notifier-kde
14755   xscreensaver-data-extra
14756   xscreensaver-gl
14757   xscreensaver-gl-extra
14758   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
14759 </p></blockquote>
14760
14761 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
14762
14763 <blockquote><p>
14764   ark
14765   google-gadgets-common
14766   google-gadgets-qt
14767   htdig
14768   kate
14769   kdebase-bin
14770   kdebase-data
14771   kdepasswd
14772   kfind
14773   klipper
14774   konq-plugins
14775   konqueror
14776   ksysguard
14777   ksysguardd
14778   libarchive1
14779   libcln6
14780   libeet1
14781   libeina-svn-06
14782   libggadget-1.0-0b
14783   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
14784   libgps19
14785   libkdecorations4
14786   libkephal4
14787   libkonq4
14788   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
14789   libkscreensaver5
14790   libksgrd4
14791   libksignalplotter4
14792   libkunitconversion4
14793   libkwineffects1a
14794   libmarblewidget4
14795   libntrack-qt4-1
14796   libntrack0
14797   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
14798   libplasmaclock4a
14799   libplasmagenericshell4
14800   libprocesscore4a
14801   libprocessui4a
14802   libqalculate5
14803   libqedje0a
14804   libqtruby4shared2
14805   libqzion0a
14806   libruby1.8
14807   libscim8c2a
14808   libsmokekdecore4-3
14809   libsmokekdeui4-3
14810   libsmokekfile3
14811   libsmokekhtml3
14812   libsmokekio3
14813   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
14814   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
14815   libsmokekparts3
14816   libsmokektexteditor3
14817   libsmokekutils3
14818   libsmokenepomuk3
14819   libsmokephonon3
14820   libsmokeplasma3
14821   libsmokeqtcore4-3
14822   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
14823   libsmokeqtgui4-3
14824   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
14825   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
14826   libsmokeqtscript4-3
14827   libsmokeqtsql4-3
14828   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
14829   libsmokeqttest4-3
14830   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
14831   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
14832   libsmokeqtxml4-3
14833   libsmokesolid3
14834   libsmokesoprano3
14835   libtaskmanager4a
14836   libtidy-0.99-0
14837   libweather-ion4a
14838   libxklavier16
14839   libxxf86misc1
14840   okteta
14841   oxygencursors
14842   plasma-dataengines-addons
14843   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
14844   plasma-widget-lancelot
14845   plasma-widgets-addons
14846   plasma-widgets-workspace
14847   polkit-kde-1
14848   ruby1.8
14849   systemsettings
14850   update-notifier-common
14851 </p></blockquote>
14852
14853 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
14854 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
14855 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
14856 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
14857
14858       </div>
14859       <div class="tags">
14860
14861
14862         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>.
14863
14864
14865       </div>
14866     </div>
14867     <div class="padding"></div>
14868
14869     <div class="entry">
14870       <div class="title">
14871         <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>
14872       </div>
14873       <div class="date">
14874         22nd November 2010
14875       </div>
14876       <div class="body">
14877         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
14878 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
14879 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
14880 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
14881 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
14882 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
14883 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
14884 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
14885 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
14886
14887 <p>I found
14888 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
14889 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
14890 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
14891 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
14892 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
14893 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
14894
14895 <pre>
14896 #!/bin/sh
14897
14898 # Based on
14899 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
14900
14901 set -e
14902 set -x
14903
14904 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
14905     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
14906     exit 1
14907 else
14908     host="$1"
14909 fi
14910
14911 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
14912     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
14913     exit 1
14914 fi
14915
14916 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
14917 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
14918 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
14919 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
14920
14921 img=$host.img
14922 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
14923 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
14924
14925 parted $img mklabel msdos
14926 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
14927 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
14928 parted $img set 1 boot on
14929
14930 modprobe dm-mod
14931 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
14932 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
14933
14934 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
14935 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
14936 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
14937
14938 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
14939 losetup -d /dev/loop0
14940 </pre>
14941
14942 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
14943 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
14944
14945 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
14946 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
14947 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
14948 seem to work just fine.</p>
14949
14950       </div>
14951       <div class="tags">
14952
14953
14954         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>.
14955
14956
14957       </div>
14958     </div>
14959     <div class="padding"></div>
14960
14961     <div class="entry">
14962       <div class="title">
14963         <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>
14964       </div>
14965       <div class="date">
14966         20th November 2010
14967       </div>
14968       <div class="body">
14969         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
14970 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
14971 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
14972 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
14973
14974 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
14975 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
14976 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
14977
14978 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
14979
14980 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
14981
14982 <blockquote><p>
14983   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
14984   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
14985   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
14986   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
14987   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
14988   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
14989   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
14990   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
14991   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
14992   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
14993   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
14994   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
14995   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
14996   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
14997   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
14998   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
14999   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
15000   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
15001   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
15002   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
15003   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
15004   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
15005   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
15006   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
15007   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
15008   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
15009   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
15010   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
15011   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
15012   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
15013   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
15014   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
15015   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
15016   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
15017   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
15018   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
15019   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
15020   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
15021   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
15022   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
15023   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
15024   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
15025   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
15026   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
15027   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
15028   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
15029   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
15030   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
15031   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
15032   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
15033   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
15034   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
15035   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
15036   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
15037   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
15038   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
15039   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
15040   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
15041   zip
15042 </p></blockquote>
15043
15044 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
15045
15046 <blockquote><p>
15047   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
15048   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
15049   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
15050   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
15051   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
15052   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
15053   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
15054   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
15055   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
15056   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
15057   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
15058   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
15059   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
15060   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
15061   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
15062   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
15063   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
15064   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
15065   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
15066   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
15067   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
15068   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
15069   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
15070   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
15071   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
15072   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
15073   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
15074   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
15075   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
15076 </p></blockquote>
15077
15078 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
15079
15080 <blockquote><p>
15081   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
15082 </p></blockquote>
15083
15084 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
15085
15086 <blockquote><p>
15087 [nothing]
15088 </p></blockquote>
15089
15090 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
15091
15092 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
15093
15094 <blockquote><p>
15095   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
15096   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
15097   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
15098   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
15099   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
15100   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
15101   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
15102   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
15103   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
15104   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
15105   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
15106   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
15107   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
15108   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
15109   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
15110   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
15111   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
15112   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
15113   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
15114   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
15115   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
15116   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
15117   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
15118   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
15119   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
15120   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
15121   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
15122   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
15123   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
15124   ttf-sazanami-gothic
15125 </p></blockquote>
15126
15127 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
15128
15129 <blockquote><p>
15130   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
15131   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
15132   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
15133   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
15134   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
15135   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
15136   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
15137   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
15138   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
15139   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
15140   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
15141   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
15142   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
15143   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
15144   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
15145   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
15146   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
15147   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
15148   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
15149   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
15150   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
15151   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
15152   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
15153   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
15154   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
15155   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
15156   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
15157   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
15158   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
15159   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
15160   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
15161   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
15162   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
15163 </p></blockquote>
15164
15165 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
15166
15167 <blockquote><p>
15168   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
15169   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
15170   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
15171   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
15172   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
15173   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
15174   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
15175 </p></blockquote>
15176
15177 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
15178
15179 <blockquote><p>
15180   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
15181 </p></blockquote>
15182
15183       </div>
15184       <div class="tags">
15185
15186
15187         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>.
15188
15189
15190       </div>
15191     </div>
15192     <div class="padding"></div>
15193
15194     <div class="entry">
15195       <div class="title">
15196         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
15197       </div>
15198       <div class="date">
15199         20th November 2010
15200       </div>
15201       <div class="body">
15202         <p>Answering
15203 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
15204 call from the Gnash project</a> for
15205 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
15206 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
15207 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
15208 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
15209 releases out more often.</p>
15210
15211 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
15212 I have considered setting up a <a
15213 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
15214 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
15215 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
15216 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
15217 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
15218 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
15219 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
15220 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
15221 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
15222 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
15223 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
15224 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
15225
15226       </div>
15227       <div class="tags">
15228
15229
15230         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>.
15231
15232
15233       </div>
15234     </div>
15235     <div class="padding"></div>
15236
15237     <div class="entry">
15238       <div class="title">
15239         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
15240       </div>
15241       <div class="date">
15242          9th November 2010
15243       </div>
15244       <div class="body">
15245         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
15246
15247 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
15248 3D linked in from
15249 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
15250 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
15251
15252       </div>
15253       <div class="tags">
15254
15255
15256         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>.
15257
15258
15259       </div>
15260     </div>
15261     <div class="padding"></div>
15262
15263     <div class="entry">
15264       <div class="title">
15265         <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>
15266       </div>
15267       <div class="date">
15268          7th November 2010
15269       </div>
15270       <div class="body">
15271         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
15272 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
15273 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
15274 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
15275 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
15276 working using this DVD.</p>
15277
15278 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
15279 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
15280 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
15281 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
15282 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
15283 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
15284 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
15285
15286 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
15287 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
15288 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
15289 Debian archive.</p>
15290
15291 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
15292 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
15293 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
15294 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
15295 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
15296 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
15297 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
15298 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
15299 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
15300 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
15301 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
15302 free X driver should work.</p>
15303
15304 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
15305 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
15306 DVD more useful again.</p>
15307
15308       </div>
15309       <div class="tags">
15310
15311
15312         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
15313
15314
15315       </div>
15316     </div>
15317     <div class="padding"></div>
15318
15319     <div class="entry">
15320       <div class="title">
15321         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
15322       </div>
15323       <div class="date">
15324         24th October 2010
15325       </div>
15326       <div class="body">
15327         <p>Some updates.</p>
15328
15329 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
15330 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
15331 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
15332 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
15333 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
15334 :)</p>
15335
15336 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
15337 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
15338 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
15339 It is called
15340 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
15341 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
15342 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
15343 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
15344 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
15345 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
15346
15347 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
15348 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
15349 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
15350 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
15351 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
15352 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
15353 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
15354 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
15355 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
15356 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
15357
15358       </div>
15359       <div class="tags">
15360
15361
15362         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>.
15363
15364
15365       </div>
15366     </div>
15367     <div class="padding"></div>
15368
15369     <div class="entry">
15370       <div class="title">
15371         <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>
15372       </div>
15373       <div class="date">
15374         19th October 2010
15375       </div>
15376       <div class="body">
15377         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
15378 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
15379 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
15380 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
15381 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
15382 AVM2 flash files.</p>
15383
15384 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
15385 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
15386 following text:</P>
15387
15388 <p><blockquote>
15389
15390   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
15391   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
15392
15393   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
15394
15395   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
15396
15397   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
15398   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
15399   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
15400   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
15401   days. The project web page is available from
15402   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
15403   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
15404   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
15405
15406   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
15407   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
15408   to get this to happen.</p>
15409
15410   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
15411   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
15412
15413 </blockquote></p>
15414
15415 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
15416 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
15417 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
15418 :)</p>
15419
15420       </div>
15421       <div class="tags">
15422
15423
15424         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>.
15425
15426
15427       </div>
15428     </div>
15429     <div class="padding"></div>
15430
15431     <div class="entry">
15432       <div class="title">
15433         <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>
15434       </div>
15435       <div class="date">
15436          9th October 2010
15437       </div>
15438       <div class="body">
15439         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
15440 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
15441 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
15442 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
15443 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
15444 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
15445 robots.</p>
15446
15447 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
15448 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
15449 a few less important features too.</p>
15450
15451 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
15452 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
15453 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
15454 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
15455
15456 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
15457 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
15458 source or binary package:</p>
15459
15460 <p><ul>
15461 <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>
15462 <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>
15463 <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>
15464 </ul></p>
15465
15466 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
15467 please let me know.</p>
15468
15469       </div>
15470       <div class="tags">
15471
15472
15473         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>.
15474
15475
15476       </div>
15477     </div>
15478     <div class="padding"></div>
15479
15480     <div class="entry">
15481       <div class="title">
15482         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
15483       </div>
15484       <div class="date">
15485          3rd October 2010
15486       </div>
15487       <div class="body">
15488         <p><ul>
15489
15490 <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
15491 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
15492
15493 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
15494 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
15495 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
15496
15497 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
15498 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
15499 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
15500 simple setup.
15501
15502 </ul></p>
15503
15504       </div>
15505       <div class="tags">
15506
15507
15508         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>.
15509
15510
15511       </div>
15512     </div>
15513     <div class="padding"></div>
15514
15515     <div class="entry">
15516       <div class="title">
15517         <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>
15518       </div>
15519       <div class="date">
15520          9th September 2010
15521       </div>
15522       <div class="body">
15523         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
15524 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
15525 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
15526 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
15527 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
15528 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
15529 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
15530 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
15531 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
15532
15533 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
15534 written:</p>
15535
15536 <blockquote>
15537 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
15538 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
15539 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
15540 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
15541 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
15542
15543 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
15544 standard.</p>
15545 </blockquote>
15546
15547 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
15548 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
15549 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
15550 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
15551
15552 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
15553 read
15554 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
15555 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
15556 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
15557 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
15558 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
15559 the issue.  The solution is to support the
15560 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
15561 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
15562 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
15563
15564       </div>
15565       <div class="tags">
15566
15567
15568         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>.
15569
15570
15571       </div>
15572     </div>
15573     <div class="padding"></div>
15574
15575     <div class="entry">
15576       <div class="title">
15577         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
15578       </div>
15579       <div class="date">
15580          4th September 2010
15581       </div>
15582       <div class="body">
15583         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
15584 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
15585 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
15586 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
15587 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
15588 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
15589 installed.</p>
15590
15591 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
15592 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
15593 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
15594 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
15595 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
15596 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
15597 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
15598 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
15599 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
15600
15601 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
15602 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
15603 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
15604 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
15605 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
15606 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
15607 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
15608 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
15609 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
15610 pages they want to visit.</p>
15611
15612 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
15613 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
15614 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
15615 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
15616 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
15617 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
15618 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
15619 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
15620 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
15621 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
15622 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
15623
15624       </div>
15625       <div class="tags">
15626
15627
15628         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>.
15629
15630
15631       </div>
15632     </div>
15633     <div class="padding"></div>
15634
15635     <div class="entry">
15636       <div class="title">
15637         <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>
15638       </div>
15639       <div class="date">
15640          1st September 2010
15641       </div>
15642       <div class="body">
15643         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
15644 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
15645 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
15646 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
15647 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
15648 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
15649 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
15650 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
15651 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
15652 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
15653 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
15654 drive around.</p>
15655
15656 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
15657 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
15658
15659 <p><pre>
15660 use Spykee;
15661 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
15662 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
15663 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
15664 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
15665 $spykee->left();
15666 sleep 2;
15667 $spykee->right();
15668 sleep 2;
15669 $spykee->forward();
15670 sleep 2;
15671 $spykee->back();
15672 sleep 2;
15673 $spykee->stop();
15674 </pre></p>
15675
15676 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
15677 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
15678 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
15679 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
15680 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
15681 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
15682 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
15683 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
15684 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
15685 going. :).</p>
15686
15687 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
15688 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
15689 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
15690 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
15691
15692       </div>
15693       <div class="tags">
15694
15695
15696         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>.
15697
15698
15699       </div>
15700     </div>
15701     <div class="padding"></div>
15702
15703     <div class="entry">
15704       <div class="title">
15705         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
15706       </div>
15707       <div class="date">
15708         30th August 2010
15709       </div>
15710       <div class="body">
15711         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
15712 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
15713 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
15714 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
15715 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
15716 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
15717 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
15718
15719 <pre>
15720 % ln foo bar
15721 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
15722 %
15723 </pre>
15724
15725 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
15726 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
15727 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
15728 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
15729 nevertheless. :)</p>
15730
15731 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
15732 git from
15733 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
15734
15735       </div>
15736       <div class="tags">
15737
15738
15739         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
15740
15741
15742       </div>
15743     </div>
15744     <div class="padding"></div>
15745
15746     <div class="entry">
15747       <div class="title">
15748         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
15749       </div>
15750       <div class="date">
15751         26th August 2010
15752       </div>
15753       <div class="body">
15754         <p>My file system sematics program
15755 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
15756 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
15757 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
15758 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
15759 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
15760 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
15761 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
15762 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
15763 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
15764 script:</p>
15765
15766 <pre>
15767 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
15768   mode_t retval = 0;
15769   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
15770   if (-1 != fd) {
15771     unlink(name);
15772     struct stat statbuf;
15773     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
15774       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
15775     }
15776     close(fd);
15777   }
15778   return retval;
15779 }
15780
15781 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
15782 int test_umask(void) {
15783   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
15784
15785   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
15786   mode_t newmode;
15787   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
15788     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
15789            newmode);
15790   }
15791   umask(007);
15792   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
15793     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
15794            newmode);
15795   }
15796
15797   umask (orig_umask);
15798   return 0;
15799 }
15800
15801 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
15802   [...]
15803   test_umask();
15804   return 0;
15805 }
15806 </pre>
15807
15808 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
15809
15810 <pre>
15811 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
15812 info: testing symlink creation
15813 info: testing subdirectory creation
15814 info: testing fcntl locking
15815   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15816   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15817   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
15818   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15819   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15820   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
15821 info: testing umask effect on file creation
15822 </pre>
15823
15824 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
15825 result:</p>
15826
15827 <pre>
15828 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
15829 info: testing symlink creation
15830 info: testing subdirectory creation
15831 info: testing fcntl locking
15832   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15833   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15834   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
15835   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15836   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15837   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
15838 info: testing umask effect on file creation
15839   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
15840   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
15841 </pre>
15842
15843 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
15844 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
15845 directory.</p>
15846
15847 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
15848 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
15849
15850 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
15851 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
15852 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
15853
15854       </div>
15855       <div class="tags">
15856
15857
15858         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
15859
15860
15861       </div>
15862     </div>
15863     <div class="padding"></div>
15864
15865     <div class="entry">
15866       <div class="title">
15867         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
15868       </div>
15869       <div class="date">
15870         15th August 2010
15871       </div>
15872       <div class="body">
15873         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
15874 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
15875 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
15876 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
15877 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
15878 long time.</p>
15879
15880       </div>
15881       <div class="tags">
15882
15883
15884         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>.
15885
15886
15887       </div>
15888     </div>
15889     <div class="padding"></div>
15890
15891     <div class="entry">
15892       <div class="title">
15893         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
15894       </div>
15895       <div class="date">
15896          9th August 2010
15897       </div>
15898       <div class="body">
15899         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
15900 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
15901 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
15902 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
15903 generated configuration.</p>
15904
15905 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
15906 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
15907 without any manual configuration.</p>
15908
15909 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
15910 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
15911 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
15912 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
15913 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
15914 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
15915 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
15916 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
15917 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
15918 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
15919 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
15920 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
15921 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
15922 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
15923 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
15924 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
15925 use.</p>
15926
15927 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
15928 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
15929 working properly out of the box:</p>
15930
15931 <ul>
15932 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
15933 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
15934 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
15935 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
15936 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
15937 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
15938 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
15939 </ul>
15940
15941 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
15942
15943 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
15944 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
15945 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
15946 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
15947 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
15948
15949 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
15950 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
15951 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
15952 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
15953 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
15954 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
15955 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
15956 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
15957
15958 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
15959 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
15960 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
15961 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
15962 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
15963 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
15964 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
15965 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
15966 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
15967 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
15968 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
15969 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
15970 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
15971 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
15972 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
15973 current DNS domain is used.</p>
15974
15975 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
15976 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
15977 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
15978 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
15979 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
15980 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
15981 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
15982 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
15983 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
15984 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
15985 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
15986 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
15987 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
15988
15989 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
15990 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
15991 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
15992 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
15993 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
15994 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
15995 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
15996 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
15997 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
15998 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
15999 do for now. :)</p>
16000
16001 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
16002 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
16003 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
16004 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
16005 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
16006 yet.</p>
16007
16008 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
16009 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16010
16011 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
16012 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
16013 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
16014 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
16015
16016       </div>
16017       <div class="tags">
16018
16019
16020         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
16021
16022
16023       </div>
16024     </div>
16025     <div class="padding"></div>
16026
16027     <div class="entry">
16028       <div class="title">
16029         <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>
16030       </div>
16031       <div class="date">
16032          8th August 2010
16033       </div>
16034       <div class="body">
16035         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
16036 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
16037 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
16038 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
16039 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
16040 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
16041 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
16042
16043 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
16044 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
16045 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
16046 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
16047 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
16048 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
16049 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
16050
16051 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
16052 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
16053 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
16054 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
16055 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
16056
16057 <pre>
16058 /*
16059  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
16060  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
16061  * directory.
16062  * License: GPL v2 or later
16063  *
16064  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
16065  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
16066 */
16067
16068 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
16069 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
16070 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
16071
16072 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
16073
16074 #include &lt;errno.h>
16075 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
16076 #include &lt;stdio.h>
16077 #include &lt;string.h>
16078 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
16079 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
16080 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
16081 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
16082 #include &lt;unistd.h>
16083
16084 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
16085 /*
16086  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
16087  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
16088  * below.
16089  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
16090  */
16091 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
16092 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
16093   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
16094 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
16095   char *zErrMsg;
16096   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
16097   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
16098   unlink(name);
16099   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
16100   if( rc ){
16101     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
16102     sqlite3_close(db);
16103     return -1;
16104   }
16105
16106   /* create tables */
16107   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
16108   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
16109     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
16110     sqlite3_close(db);
16111     return -1;
16112   }
16113   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
16114   sqlite3_close(db);
16115   return 0;
16116 }
16117 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
16118
16119 /*
16120  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
16121  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
16122  * done in the sqlite3 library.
16123  * See also
16124  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
16125  * POSIX specification
16126  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
16127  */
16128 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
16129   struct flock fl;
16130   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
16131   unlink(name);
16132   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
16133   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
16134
16135   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
16136   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
16137   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
16138   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
16139   fl.l_len    = 1;
16140   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
16141   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
16142
16143   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
16144   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
16145   fl.l_len    = 510;
16146   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
16147   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
16148
16149   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
16150   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
16151   fl.l_len    = 1;
16152   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
16153   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
16154
16155   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
16156   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
16157   fl.l_len    = 1;
16158   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
16159   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
16160
16161   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
16162   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
16163   fl.l_len    = 510;
16164   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
16165
16166   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
16167   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
16168   fl.l_len    = 2;
16169   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
16170   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
16171
16172   close(fd);
16173   return 0;
16174 }
16175
16176 /*
16177  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
16178  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
16179  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
16180  * slowing down file operations.
16181  */
16182 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
16183 #define LEVELS 5
16184   char *path = strdup("test");
16185   char *dirs[LEVELS];
16186   int level;
16187   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
16188   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
16189     char *newpath = NULL;
16190     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
16191       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
16192              path, strerror(errno));
16193       break;
16194     }
16195     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
16196     free(path);
16197     path = newpath;
16198   }
16199   return 0;
16200 }
16201
16202 /*
16203  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
16204  * KDE.
16205  */
16206 int test_symlinks(void) {
16207   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
16208   unlink("symlink");
16209   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
16210     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
16211   return 0;
16212 }
16213
16214 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
16215   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
16216   test_symlinks();
16217   test_subdirectory_creation();
16218 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
16219   test_sqlite_open();
16220 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
16221   test_gcompris_locking();
16222   return 0;
16223 }
16224 </pre>
16225
16226 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
16227 this:</p>
16228
16229 <pre>
16230 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
16231 info: testing symlink creation
16232 info: testing subdirectory creation
16233 info: sqlite worked
16234 info: testing fcntl locking
16235   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
16236   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
16237   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
16238   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
16239   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
16240   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
16241 </pre>
16242
16243 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
16244 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
16245 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
16246 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
16247 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
16248 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
16249 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
16250 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
16251
16252 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
16253 it. :)</p>
16254
16255 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
16256 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
16257 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
16258
16259       </div>
16260       <div class="tags">
16261
16262
16263         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
16264
16265
16266       </div>
16267     </div>
16268     <div class="padding"></div>
16269
16270     <div class="entry">
16271       <div class="title">
16272         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Autodetecting_Client_setup_for_roaming_workstations_in_Debian_Edu.html">Autodetecting Client setup for roaming workstations in Debian Edu</a>
16273       </div>
16274       <div class="date">
16275          7th August 2010
16276       </div>
16277       <div class="body">
16278         <p>A few days ago, I
16279 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
16280 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
16281 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
16282 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
16283 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
16284 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
16285 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
16286 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
16287 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
16288
16289 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
16290 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
16291 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
16292 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
16293 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
16294 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
16295 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
16296 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
16297 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
16298 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
16299 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
16300 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
16301 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
16302 gave it a IP address.</p>
16303
16304 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
16305 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
16306 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
16307 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
16308 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
16309 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
16310 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
16311 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
16312
16313 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
16314 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
16315 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
16316 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
16317 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
16318 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
16319
16320 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
16321 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
16322 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
16323 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
16324 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
16325 with UID and GID values.</p>
16326
16327 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
16328 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16329
16330       </div>
16331       <div class="tags">
16332
16333
16334         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
16335
16336
16337       </div>
16338     </div>
16339     <div class="padding"></div>
16340
16341     <div class="entry">
16342       <div class="title">
16343         <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>
16344       </div>
16345       <div class="date">
16346          3rd August 2010
16347       </div>
16348       <div class="body">
16349         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
16350 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
16351 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
16352 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
16353 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
16354 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
16355 servers.</p>
16356
16357 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
16358 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
16359 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
16360 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
16361 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
16362 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
16363 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
16364 .uio.no.</p>
16365
16366 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
16367 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
16368 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
16369 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
16370 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
16371 university servers.</p>
16372
16373 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
16374 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
16375 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
16376 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
16377 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
16378 uses.</p>
16379
16380       </div>
16381       <div class="tags">
16382
16383
16384         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
16385
16386
16387       </div>
16388     </div>
16389     <div class="padding"></div>
16390
16391     <div class="entry">
16392       <div class="title">
16393         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
16394       </div>
16395       <div class="date">
16396         27th July 2010
16397       </div>
16398       <div class="body">
16399         <p>I discovered this while doing
16400 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
16401 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
16402 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
16403 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
16404 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
16405
16406 <p>An example is from todays
16407 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
16408 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
16409 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
16410 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
16411 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
16412 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
16413 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
16414
16415 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
16416
16417 <blockquote><pre>
16418 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
16419  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
16420   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
16421 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
16422  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
16423 </pre></blockquote>
16424
16425 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
16426 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
16427 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
16428 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
16429 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
16430 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
16431 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
16432 of dependency loops.</p>
16433
16434 <p>Thanks to
16435 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
16436 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
16437 dependencies
16438 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
16439 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
16440
16441 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
16442 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
16443 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
16444 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
16445 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
16446 it.</p>
16447
16448       </div>
16449       <div class="tags">
16450
16451
16452         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>.
16453
16454
16455       </div>
16456     </div>
16457     <div class="padding"></div>
16458
16459     <div class="entry">
16460       <div class="title">
16461         <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>
16462       </div>
16463       <div class="date">
16464         27th July 2010
16465       </div>
16466       <div class="body">
16467         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
16468 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
16469 completed.</p>
16470
16471 <blockquote>
16472 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
16473 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
16474 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
16475 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
16476 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
16477 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
16478 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
16479 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
16480
16481 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
16482 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
16483 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
16484
16485 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
16486 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
16487 much.</p>
16488
16489 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
16490
16491 <ul>
16492 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
16493 <ul>
16494   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
16495          combination with some new artwork
16496   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
16497   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
16498   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
16499   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
16500   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
16501   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
16502   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
16503   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
16504   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
16505 </ul></li>
16506 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
16507     Enabled for:
16508 <ul>
16509   <li>PAM
16510   <li>LDAP
16511   <li>IMAP
16512   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
16513 </ul>
16514 </li>
16515 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
16516 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
16517     fetched from LDAP.</li>
16518 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
16519 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
16520 </ul>
16521 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
16522
16523 <ul>
16524 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
16525     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
16526     for testing.</li>
16527 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
16528     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
16529     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
16530 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
16531 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
16532 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
16533 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
16534     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
16535 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
16536     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
16537     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
16538 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
16539     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
16540     and help out with translations.</li>
16541 </ul>
16542
16543 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
16544
16545 <ul>
16546 <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>
16547 <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>
16548 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
16549 </ul>
16550 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
16551
16552 <ul>
16553 <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>
16554 <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>
16555 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
16556 </ul>
16557
16558 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
16559 get closer to the final release.</p>
16560
16561 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
16562
16563 <ul>
16564 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
16565 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
16566 </ul>
16567
16568 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
16569 <ul>
16570 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
16571 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
16572 </ul>
16573 <p>How to report bugs:
16574 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
16575
16576 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
16577 </blockquote>
16578
16579       </div>
16580       <div class="tags">
16581
16582
16583         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
16584
16585
16586       </div>
16587     </div>
16588     <div class="padding"></div>
16589
16590     <div class="entry">
16591       <div class="title">
16592         <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>
16593       </div>
16594       <div class="date">
16595         25th July 2010
16596       </div>
16597       <div class="body">
16598         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
16599 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
16600 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
16601 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
16602 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
16603
16604 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
16605 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
16606 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
16607 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
16608 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
16609 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
16610 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
16611
16612 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
16613 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
16614 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
16615 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
16616 up. :)</p>
16617
16618 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
16619 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
16620 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
16621
16622 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
16623 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
16624 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
16625 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
16626 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
16627 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
16628 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
16629 release another day.</p>
16630
16631 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
16632 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16633
16634       </div>
16635       <div class="tags">
16636
16637
16638         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
16639
16640
16641       </div>
16642     </div>
16643     <div class="padding"></div>
16644
16645     <div class="entry">
16646       <div class="title">
16647         <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>
16648       </div>
16649       <div class="date">
16650         18th July 2010
16651       </div>
16652       <div class="body">
16653         <p>Thanks to
16654 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
16655 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
16656 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
16657 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
16658 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
16659 only available from the development server, until more experience is
16660 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
16661
16662 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
16663 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
16664 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
16665 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
16666 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
16667 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
16668 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
16669
16670       </div>
16671       <div class="tags">
16672
16673
16674         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>.
16675
16676
16677       </div>
16678     </div>
16679     <div class="padding"></div>
16680
16681     <div class="entry">
16682       <div class="title">
16683         <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>
16684       </div>
16685       <div class="date">
16686         17th July 2010
16687       </div>
16688       <div class="body">
16689         <p>This is a
16690 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
16691 on my
16692 <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
16693 work</a> on
16694 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
16695 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
16696
16697 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
16698 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
16699 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
16700 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
16701
16702 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
16703 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
16704 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
16705
16706 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
16707
16708 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
16709 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
16710 the web.
16711
16712 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
16713 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
16714 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
16715 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
16716 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
16717 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
16718
16719 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
16720 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
16721 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
16722 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
16723 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
16724 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
16725 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
16726 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
16727 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
16728 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
16729 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
16730 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
16731 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
16732 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
16733 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
16734 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
16735
16736 <blockquote><pre>
16737 ldapsearch -h ldap \
16738   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
16739   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
16740   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
16741   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
16742   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
16743   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
16744
16745 ldapsearch -h ldap \
16746   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
16747   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
16748   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
16749   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
16750   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
16751 </pre></blockquote>
16752
16753 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
16754 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
16755 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
16756 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16757 also exist.</p>
16758
16759 <blockquote><pre>
16760 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16761 objectclass: top
16762 objectclass: dnsdomain
16763 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
16764 dc: tjener
16765 arecord: 10.0.2.2
16766 associateddomain: tjener.intern
16767
16768 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16769 objectclass: top
16770 objectclass: dnsdomain2
16771 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
16772 dc: 2
16773 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
16774 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
16775 </pre></blockquote>
16776
16777 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
16778 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
16779 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
16780 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
16781 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
16782 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
16783 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
16784 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
16785 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
16786 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
16787 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
16788 instead.</p>
16789
16790 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
16791 like this:</p>
16792
16793 <blockquote><pre>
16794 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
16795   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
16796   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
16797   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
16798   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
16799   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
16800
16801 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
16802   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
16803 </pre></blockquote>
16804
16805 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
16806 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
16807 reverse lookups.</p>
16808
16809 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
16810 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
16811 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
16812 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
16813
16814 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
16815 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
16816 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
16817
16818 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
16819 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
16820 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
16821 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
16822 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
16823
16824 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
16825 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
16826 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
16827 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
16828 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
16829
16830 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
16831 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
16832 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
16833 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
16834 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
16835 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
16836
16837 <blockquote><pre>
16838 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
16839     SUP top
16840     AUXILIARY
16841     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
16842           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
16843           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
16844           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
16845           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
16846     ))
16847 </pre></blockquote>
16848
16849 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
16850 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
16851 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
16852 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
16853 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
16854 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
16855
16856 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
16857
16858 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
16859 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
16860 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
16861 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
16862 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
16863
16864 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
16865 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
16866 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
16867 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
16868
16869 <blockquote><pre>
16870 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
16871 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
16872 </pre></blockquote>
16873
16874 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
16875 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
16876 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
16877 search result is this entry:</p>
16878
16879 <blockquote><pre>
16880 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16881 cn: dhcp
16882 objectClass: top
16883 objectClass: dhcpServer
16884 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16885 </pre></blockquote>
16886
16887 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
16888 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
16889 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
16890 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
16891 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
16892 The search result is this entry:</p>
16893
16894 <blockquote><pre>
16895 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16896 cn: DHCP Config
16897 objectClass: top
16898 objectClass: dhcpService
16899 objectClass: dhcpOptions
16900 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16901 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
16902 dhcpStatements: authoritative
16903 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
16904 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
16905 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
16906 </pre></blockquote>
16907
16908 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
16909 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
16910 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
16911 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
16912 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
16913 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
16914 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
16915 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
16916 related computer objects.</p>
16917
16918 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
16919 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
16920 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
16921 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
16922 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
16923 like:</p>
16924
16925 <blockquote><pre>
16926 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16927 cn: hostname
16928 objectClass: top
16929 objectClass: dhcpHost
16930 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
16931 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
16932 </pre></blockquote>
16933
16934 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
16935 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
16936 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
16937 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
16938 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
16939 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
16940 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
16941 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
16942 structural object class.
16943
16944 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
16945
16946 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
16947 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
16948 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
16949 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
16950 in the configuration.</p>
16951
16952 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
16953 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
16954 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
16955 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
16956 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
16957 structure.</p>
16958
16959 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
16960 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
16961
16962 <blockquote><pre>
16963 ou=services
16964   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
16965     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
16966     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
16967       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
16968         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
16969     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
16970       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
16971         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
16972     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
16973       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
16974 </pre></blockquote>
16975
16976 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
16977 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
16978 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
16979 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
16980
16981 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
16982 like this:</p>
16983
16984 <blockquote><pre>
16985 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16986 dc: hostname
16987 objectClass: top
16988 objectClass: dhcpHost
16989 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
16990 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
16991 associateddomain: hostname.intern
16992 arecord: 10.11.12.13
16993 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
16994 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
16995 </pre></blockquote>
16996
16997 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
16998 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
16999 auxiliary object class.</p>
17000
17001       </div>
17002       <div class="tags">
17003
17004
17005         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>.
17006
17007
17008       </div>
17009     </div>
17010     <div class="padding"></div>
17011
17012     <div class="entry">
17013       <div class="title">
17014         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
17015       </div>
17016       <div class="date">
17017         14th July 2010
17018       </div>
17019       <div class="body">
17020         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
17021 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
17022 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
17023 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
17024 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
17025
17026 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
17027 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
17028
17029 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
17030 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
17031 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
17032 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
17033 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
17034 to a slave DNS server.</p>
17035
17036 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
17037 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
17038 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
17039 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
17040 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
17041 seem to work.</p>
17042
17043 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
17044 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
17045 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
17046 this:</p>
17047
17048 <blockquote><pre>
17049   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
17050   cn: hostname
17051   objectClass: dhcphost
17052   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
17053   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
17054   associateddomain: hostname.intern
17055   arecord: 10.11.12.13
17056   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
17057   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
17058   ldapconfigsound: Y
17059 </pre></blockquote>
17060
17061 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
17062 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
17063 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
17064 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
17065
17066 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
17067 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
17068 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
17069 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
17070 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
17071 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
17072 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
17073 might be a good place to put it.</p>
17074
17075 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
17076 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17077
17078       </div>
17079       <div class="tags">
17080
17081
17082         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>.
17083
17084
17085       </div>
17086     </div>
17087     <div class="padding"></div>
17088
17089     <div class="entry">
17090       <div class="title">
17091         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
17092       </div>
17093       <div class="date">
17094         11th July 2010
17095       </div>
17096       <div class="body">
17097         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
17098 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
17099 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
17100 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
17101
17102 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
17103 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
17104 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
17105 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
17106 LTSP clients.</p>
17107
17108 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
17109 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
17110 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
17111
17112 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
17113 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
17114 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
17115
17116 <blockquote><pre>
17117 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
17118 #
17119 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
17120 #
17121 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
17122 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
17123 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
17124 #
17125 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
17126 # existence of attribute names.
17127 #
17128 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
17129 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
17130 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
17131 #
17132 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
17133 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
17134 #
17135 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
17136 #     SUP top
17137 #     AUXILIARY
17138 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
17139
17140 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
17141 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
17142     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
17143     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
17144         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
17145         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
17146             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
17147             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
17148             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
17149             # bass value on to clients
17150             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
17151         done
17152     done
17153 fi
17154 </pre></blockquote>
17155
17156 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
17157 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
17158 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
17159 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
17160 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
17161
17162 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
17163 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17164
17165 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
17166 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
17167 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
17168 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
17169 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
17170 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
17171
17172       </div>
17173       <div class="tags">
17174
17175
17176         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>.
17177
17178
17179       </div>
17180     </div>
17181     <div class="padding"></div>
17182
17183     <div class="entry">
17184       <div class="title">
17185         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
17186       </div>
17187       <div class="date">
17188          9th July 2010
17189       </div>
17190       <div class="body">
17191         <p>Since
17192 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
17193 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
17194 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
17195 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
17196 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
17197 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
17198 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
17199 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
17200 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
17201 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
17202 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
17203 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
17204 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
17205
17206       </div>
17207       <div class="tags">
17208
17209
17210         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>.
17211
17212
17213       </div>
17214     </div>
17215     <div class="padding"></div>
17216
17217     <div class="entry">
17218       <div class="title">
17219         <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>
17220       </div>
17221       <div class="date">
17222          3rd July 2010
17223       </div>
17224       <div class="body">
17225         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
17226 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
17227 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
17228 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
17229 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
17230 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
17231 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
17232 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
17233
17234 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
17235 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
17236 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
17237 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
17238 publish the difference.</p>
17239
17240 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
17241
17242 <blockquote><p>
17243   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
17244   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
17245   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
17246   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
17247   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
17248   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
17249   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
17250   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
17251 </p></blockquote>
17252
17253 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
17254
17255 <blockquote><p>
17256   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
17257   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
17258   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
17259   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
17260   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
17261   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
17262   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
17263   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
17264   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
17265   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
17266   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
17267   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
17268   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
17269   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
17270   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
17271   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
17272   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
17273   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
17274   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
17275   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
17276 </p></blockquote>
17277
17278 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
17279
17280 <blockquote><p>
17281   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
17282   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
17283   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
17284   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
17285   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
17286   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
17287   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
17288   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
17289   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
17290   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
17291   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
17292   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
17293   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
17294   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
17295   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
17296   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
17297   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
17298   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
17299   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
17300   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
17301   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
17302 </p></blockquote>
17303
17304 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
17305
17306 <blockquote><p>
17307   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
17308   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
17309   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
17310 </p></blockquote>
17311
17312 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
17313 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
17314 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
17315 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
17316 the difference somewhat.
17317
17318       </div>
17319       <div class="tags">
17320
17321
17322         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>.
17323
17324
17325       </div>
17326     </div>
17327     <div class="padding"></div>
17328
17329     <div class="entry">
17330       <div class="title">
17331         <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>
17332       </div>
17333       <div class="date">
17334          1st July 2010
17335       </div>
17336       <div class="body">
17337         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
17338 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
17339 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
17340 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
17341 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
17342 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
17343 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
17344 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
17345 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
17346
17347 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
17348
17349 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
17350 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
17351 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
17352 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
17353 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
17354 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
17355 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
17356 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
17357 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
17358 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
17359 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
17360 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
17361 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
17362 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
17363 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
17364
17365 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
17366
17367 <blockquote><pre>
17368 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
17369 </pre></blockquote>
17370
17371 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
17372 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
17373 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
17374 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
17375 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
17376 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
17377 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
17378 on how to get this working.</p>
17379
17380 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
17381 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
17382 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
17383 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
17384 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
17385 instructions I found in the
17386 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
17387 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
17388
17389 <blockquote><pre>
17390         debug-level             0
17391         reload-count            unlimited
17392         paranoia                no
17393
17394         enable-cache            passwd          yes
17395         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
17396         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
17397         suggested-size          passwd          211
17398         check-files             passwd          yes
17399         persistent              passwd          yes
17400         shared                  passwd          yes
17401         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
17402         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
17403
17404         enable-cache            group           yes
17405         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
17406         negative-time-to-live   group           20
17407         suggested-size          group           211
17408         check-files             group           yes
17409         persistent              group           yes
17410         shared                  group           yes
17411         max-db-size             group           33554432
17412         auto-propagate          group           yes
17413
17414         enable-cache            hosts           no
17415         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
17416         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
17417         suggested-size          hosts           211
17418         check-files             hosts           yes
17419         persistent              hosts           yes
17420         shared                  hosts           yes
17421         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
17422
17423         enable-cache            services        yes
17424         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
17425         negative-time-to-live   services        20
17426         suggested-size          services        211
17427         check-files             services        yes
17428         persistent              services        yes
17429         shared                  services        yes
17430         max-db-size             services        33554432
17431 </pre></blockquote>
17432
17433 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
17434 automatically like the one provided in
17435 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
17436 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
17437 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
17438 look like this:</p>
17439
17440 <blockquote><pre>
17441 passwd:         files ldap
17442 group:          files ldap
17443 shadow:         files ldap
17444 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
17445 networks:       files
17446 protocols:      files
17447 services:       files
17448 ethers:         files
17449 rpc:            files
17450 netgroup:       files ldap
17451 </pre></blockquote>
17452
17453 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
17454 shadow and netgroup.</p>
17455
17456 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
17457 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
17458 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
17459 attributes cached.
17460
17461 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
17462   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
17463
17464 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
17465 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
17466 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
17467 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
17468 discovered sssd.</p>
17469
17470 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
17471
17472 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
17473 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
17474 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
17475 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
17476 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
17477 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
17478 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
17479 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
17480 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
17481 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
17482 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
17483 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
17484 version 1.2 is now in testing.
17485
17486 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
17487 roaming setup I want</p>
17488
17489 <blockquote><pre>
17490 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
17491 </pre></blockquote>
17492
17493 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
17494 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
17495
17496 <blockquote><pre>
17497 [sssd]
17498 config_file_version = 2
17499 reconnection_retries = 3
17500 sbus_timeout = 30
17501 services = nss, pam
17502 domains = INTERN
17503
17504 [nss]
17505 filter_groups = root
17506 filter_users = root
17507 reconnection_retries = 3
17508
17509 [pam]
17510 reconnection_retries = 3
17511
17512 [domain/INTERN]
17513 enumerate = false
17514 cache_credentials = true
17515
17516 id_provider = ldap
17517 auth_provider = ldap
17518 chpass_provider = ldap
17519
17520 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
17521 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
17522 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
17523 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
17524 </pre></blockquote>
17525
17526 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
17527 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
17528
17529 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
17530 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
17531 modify it manually.</p>
17532
17533 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
17534 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17535
17536       </div>
17537       <div class="tags">
17538
17539
17540         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
17541
17542
17543       </div>
17544     </div>
17545     <div class="padding"></div>
17546
17547     <div class="entry">
17548       <div class="title">
17549         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
17550       </div>
17551       <div class="date">
17552         28th June 2010
17553       </div>
17554       <div class="body">
17555         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
17556 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
17557 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
17558 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
17559 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
17560 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
17561 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
17562 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
17563 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
17564 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
17565
17566 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
17567 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
17568 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
17569 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
17570 released.</p>
17571
17572 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
17573 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
17574 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
17575 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
17576
17577 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
17578 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17579
17580 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
17581 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
17582 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
17583 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
17584 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
17585
17586       </div>
17587       <div class="tags">
17588
17589
17590         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>.
17591
17592
17593       </div>
17594     </div>
17595     <div class="padding"></div>
17596
17597     <div class="entry">
17598       <div class="title">
17599         <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>
17600       </div>
17601       <div class="date">
17602         24th June 2010
17603       </div>
17604       <div class="body">
17605         <p>A while back, I
17606 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
17607 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
17608 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
17609 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
17610
17611 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
17612 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
17613 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
17614 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
17615
17616 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
17617 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
17618 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
17619 Debian Edu.</p>
17620
17621 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
17622 the
17623 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
17624 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
17625 available today from IETF.</p>
17626
17627 <pre>
17628 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
17629 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
17630 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
17631  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
17632         NAME 'dhcpHost'
17633         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
17634 -       SUP top
17635 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
17636         MUST cn
17637         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
17638         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
17639 </pre>
17640
17641 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
17642 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
17643 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
17644
17645 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
17646 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17647
17648       </div>
17649       <div class="tags">
17650
17651
17652         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>.
17653
17654
17655       </div>
17656     </div>
17657     <div class="padding"></div>
17658
17659     <div class="entry">
17660       <div class="title">
17661         <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>
17662       </div>
17663       <div class="date">
17664         16th June 2010
17665       </div>
17666       <div class="body">
17667         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
17668 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
17669 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
17670 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
17671 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
17672 this:
17673
17674 <blockquote><pre>
17675 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
17676 tasksel --new-install
17677 </pre></blockquote>
17678
17679 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
17680 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
17681 any output what so ever.
17682
17683 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
17684 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
17685 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
17686 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
17687 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
17688 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
17689 code like this:
17690
17691 <blockquote><pre>
17692 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
17693 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
17694 $cmd
17695 </pre></blockquote>
17696
17697 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
17698 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
17699 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
17700 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
17701 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
17702 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
17703 installation.</p>
17704
17705 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
17706 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
17707 like this.</p>
17708
17709       </div>
17710       <div class="tags">
17711
17712
17713         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>.
17714
17715
17716       </div>
17717     </div>
17718     <div class="padding"></div>
17719
17720     <div class="entry">
17721       <div class="title">
17722         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
17723       </div>
17724       <div class="date">
17725         13th June 2010
17726       </div>
17727       <div class="body">
17728         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
17729 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
17730 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
17731 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
17732 pages.</p>
17733
17734 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
17735 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
17736 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
17737 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
17738 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
17739 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
17740 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
17741 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
17742 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
17743 see how the project is doing.</p>
17744
17745 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
17746 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
17747 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
17748 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
17749 Windows.  This is great.</p>
17750
17751       </div>
17752       <div class="tags">
17753
17754
17755         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>.
17756
17757
17758       </div>
17759     </div>
17760     <div class="padding"></div>
17761
17762     <div class="entry">
17763       <div class="title">
17764         <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>
17765       </div>
17766       <div class="date">
17767         13th June 2010
17768       </div>
17769       <div class="body">
17770         <p>My
17771 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
17772 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
17773 finally made the upgrade logs available from
17774 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
17775 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
17776 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
17777 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
17778
17779 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
17780 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
17781 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
17782 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
17783 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
17784 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
17785 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
17786 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
17787
17788 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
17789 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
17790 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
17791 too surprising.</p>
17792
17793 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
17794 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
17795 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
17796 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
17797 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
17798 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
17799 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
17800 continue.</p>
17801
17802 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
17803 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
17804   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
17805   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
17806   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
17807   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
17808   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
17809   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
17810   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
17811   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
17812   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
17813   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
17814   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
17815   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
17816   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
17817   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
17818   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
17819   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
17820   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
17821   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
17822   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
17823   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
17824   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
17825   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
17826   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
17827   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
17828   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
17829   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
17830   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
17831   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
17832
17833 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
17834
17835 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
17836   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
17837   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
17838   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
17839   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
17840   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
17841   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
17842   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
17843   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
17844   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
17845   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
17846   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
17847   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
17848   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
17849   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
17850   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
17851   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
17852   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
17853   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
17854   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
17855   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
17856   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
17857   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
17858   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
17859   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
17860   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
17861   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
17862   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
17863   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
17864   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
17865   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
17866   zip</p>
17867
17868 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
17869
17870 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
17871   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
17872   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
17873   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
17874   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
17875   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
17876   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
17877   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
17878   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
17879   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
17880   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
17881   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
17882   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
17883   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
17884   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
17885   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
17886   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
17887   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
17888   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
17889   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
17890   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
17891   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
17892   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
17893   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
17894   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
17895   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
17896   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
17897   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
17898
17899 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
17900 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
17901   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
17902   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
17903   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
17904   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
17905   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
17906   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
17907   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
17908   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
17909   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
17910   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
17911   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
17912   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
17913   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
17914   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
17915   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
17916   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
17917   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
17918   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
17919   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
17920   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
17921   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
17922   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
17923   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
17924   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
17925   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
17926   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
17927   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
17928   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
17929   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
17930   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
17931   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
17932   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
17933   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
17934   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
17935   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
17936   xulrunner-1.9</p>
17937
17938
17939       </div>
17940       <div class="tags">
17941
17942
17943         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>.
17944
17945
17946       </div>
17947     </div>
17948     <div class="padding"></div>
17949
17950     <div class="entry">
17951       <div class="title">
17952         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
17953       </div>
17954       <div class="date">
17955         11th June 2010
17956       </div>
17957       <div class="body">
17958         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
17959 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
17960 have been discovered and reported in the process
17961 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
17962 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
17963 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
17964 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
17965 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
17966
17967 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
17968 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
17969 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
17970 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
17971 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
17972 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
17973
17974 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
17975 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
17976 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
17977 is created.  The bug report
17978 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
17979 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
17980 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
17981 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
17982 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
17983 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
17984 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
17985 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
17986 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
17987 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
17988 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
17989 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
17990 Debian Squeeze.</p>
17991
17992 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
17993 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
17994 trick:</p>
17995
17996 <blockquote><pre>
17997 #!/bin/sh
17998 set -ex
17999
18000 if [ "$1" ] ; then
18001     desktop=$1
18002 else
18003     desktop=gnome
18004 fi
18005
18006 from=lenny
18007 to=squeeze
18008
18009 exec &lt; /dev/null
18010 unset LANG
18011 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
18012 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
18013 fuser -mv .
18014 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
18015 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
18016 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
18017 #!/bin/sh
18018 exit 101
18019 EOF
18020 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
18021 exit_cleanup() {
18022     umount $tmpdir/proc
18023 }
18024 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
18025 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
18026 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
18027
18028 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
18029
18030 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
18031 # to return the correct answers.
18032 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
18033     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
18034
18035 # Include the desktop and laptop task
18036 for test in desktop laptop ; do
18037     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
18038 #!/bin/sh
18039 exit 2
18040 EOF
18041     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
18042 done
18043
18044 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
18045 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
18046 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
18047 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
18048
18049 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
18050 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
18051 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
18052 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
18053 fuser -mv
18054 </pre></blockquote>
18055
18056 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
18057 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
18058 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
18059 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
18060 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
18061 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
18062
18063 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
18064 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
18065 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
18066 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
18067 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
18068 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
18069 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
18070
18071 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
18072 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
18073 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
18074 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
18075 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
18076 packages.</p>
18077
18078       </div>
18079       <div class="tags">
18080
18081
18082         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>.
18083
18084
18085       </div>
18086     </div>
18087     <div class="padding"></div>
18088
18089     <div class="entry">
18090       <div class="title">
18091         <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>
18092       </div>
18093       <div class="date">
18094          6th June 2010
18095       </div>
18096       <div class="body">
18097         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
18098 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
18099 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
18100 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
18101 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
18102 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
18103 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
18104
18105 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
18106 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
18107 COLUMNS):</p>
18108
18109 <blockquote><pre>
18110 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
18111 previous=N
18112 PREVLEVEL=
18113 RUNLEVEL=
18114 runlevel=S
18115 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
18116 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
18117 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
18118 </pre></blockquote>
18119
18120 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
18121 script.</p>
18122
18123 <blockquote><pre>
18124 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
18125 previous=N
18126 PREVLEVEL=N
18127 RUNLEVEL=S
18128 runlevel=S
18129 </pre></blockquote>
18130
18131 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
18132 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
18133 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
18134
18135 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
18136 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
18137 choice.</p>
18138
18139       </div>
18140       <div class="tags">
18141
18142
18143         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>.
18144
18145
18146       </div>
18147     </div>
18148     <div class="padding"></div>
18149
18150     <div class="entry">
18151       <div class="title">
18152         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
18153       </div>
18154       <div class="date">
18155          6th June 2010
18156       </div>
18157       <div class="body">
18158         <p>Via the
18159 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
18160 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
18161 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
18162 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
18163 following the standards wars of today.</p>
18164
18165       </div>
18166       <div class="tags">
18167
18168
18169         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>.
18170
18171
18172       </div>
18173     </div>
18174     <div class="padding"></div>
18175
18176     <div class="entry">
18177       <div class="title">
18178         <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>
18179       </div>
18180       <div class="date">
18181          3rd June 2010
18182       </div>
18183       <div class="body">
18184         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
18185 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
18186 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
18187 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
18188 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
18189
18190 <blockquote><pre>
18191 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
18192   vendor                    count
18193   Dell Computer Corporation     1
18194     PowerEdge 1750              1
18195   IBM                           1
18196     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
18197   Intel                         2
18198   [no-dmi-info]                 3
18199 maintainer:~#
18200 </pre></blockquote>
18201
18202 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
18203 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
18204 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
18205 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
18206 option to list the individual machines.</p>
18207
18208 <p>A larger list is
18209 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
18210 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
18211 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
18212 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
18213 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
18214 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
18215 collector.</p>
18216
18217       </div>
18218       <div class="tags">
18219
18220
18221         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>.
18222
18223
18224       </div>
18225     </div>
18226     <div class="padding"></div>
18227
18228     <div class="entry">
18229       <div class="title">
18230         <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>
18231       </div>
18232       <div class="date">
18233          1st June 2010
18234       </div>
18235       <div class="body">
18236         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
18237 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
18238 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
18239 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
18240 wait.</p>
18241
18242 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
18243 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
18244 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
18245 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
18246 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
18247 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
18248
18249 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
18250 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
18251 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
18252 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
18253 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
18254 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
18255 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
18256 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
18257
18258 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
18259
18260       </div>
18261       <div class="tags">
18262
18263
18264         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
18265
18266
18267       </div>
18268     </div>
18269     <div class="padding"></div>
18270
18271     <div class="entry">
18272       <div class="title">
18273         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
18274       </div>
18275       <div class="date">
18276         27th May 2010
18277       </div>
18278       <div class="body">
18279         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
18280 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
18281 issues are known and should be solved:
18282
18283 <p><ul>
18284
18285 <li>The wicd package seen to
18286 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
18287 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
18288 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
18289 seem to be on the case.</li>
18290
18291 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
18292 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
18293 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
18294 maintainer is on the case.</li>
18295
18296 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
18297 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
18298 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
18299 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
18300 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
18301 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
18302 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
18303 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
18304
18305 </ul></p>
18306
18307 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
18308 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
18309 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
18310 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
18311
18312 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
18313 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
18314 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
18315 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
18316
18317 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
18318
18319       </div>
18320       <div class="tags">
18321
18322
18323         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>.
18324
18325
18326       </div>
18327     </div>
18328     <div class="padding"></div>
18329
18330     <div class="entry">
18331       <div class="title">
18332         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
18333       </div>
18334       <div class="date">
18335         22nd May 2010
18336       </div>
18337       <div class="body">
18338         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
18339 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
18340 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
18341 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
18342
18343 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
18344 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
18345 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
18346 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
18347 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
18348 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
18349 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
18350 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
18351 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
18352 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
18353 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
18354 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
18355 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
18356 going to work.</p>
18357
18358 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
18359 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
18360 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
18361 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
18362 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
18363 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
18364 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
18365 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
18366 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
18367 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
18368 Edu.</p>
18369
18370 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
18371 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
18372 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
18373 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
18374 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
18375 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
18376
18377 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
18378 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
18379
18380       </div>
18381       <div class="tags">
18382
18383
18384         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>.
18385
18386
18387       </div>
18388     </div>
18389     <div class="padding"></div>
18390
18391     <div class="entry">
18392       <div class="title">
18393         <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>
18394       </div>
18395       <div class="date">
18396         19th May 2010
18397       </div>
18398       <div class="body">
18399         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
18400 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
18401 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
18402 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
18403 into unstable.  The
18404 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
18405 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
18406 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
18407 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
18408 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
18409 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
18410 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
18411
18412 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
18413 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
18414 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
18415 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
18416 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
18417 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
18418 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
18419 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
18420
18421 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
18422 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
18423 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
18424 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
18425 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
18426 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
18427 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
18428
18429 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
18430 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
18431 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
18432 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
18433 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
18434 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
18435 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
18436 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
18437 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
18438 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
18439 on the home directory servers.</p>
18440
18441 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
18442 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
18443 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
18444 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
18445 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
18446 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
18447
18448 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
18449 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18450
18451       </div>
18452       <div class="tags">
18453
18454
18455         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
18456
18457
18458       </div>
18459     </div>
18460     <div class="padding"></div>
18461
18462     <div class="entry">
18463       <div class="title">
18464         <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>
18465       </div>
18466       <div class="date">
18467         14th May 2010
18468       </div>
18469       <div class="body">
18470         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
18471 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
18472 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
18473 expected, if I am to believe the
18474 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
18475 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
18476 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
18477 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
18478 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
18479 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
18480 version.</p>
18481
18482 More information about
18483 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
18484 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
18485 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
18486 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
18487
18488 <blockquote><pre>
18489 CONCURRENCY=none
18490 </pre></blockquote>
18491
18492 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
18493 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
18494 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
18495 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
18496
18497       </div>
18498       <div class="tags">
18499
18500
18501         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>.
18502
18503
18504       </div>
18505     </div>
18506     <div class="padding"></div>
18507
18508     <div class="entry">
18509       <div class="title">
18510         <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>
18511       </div>
18512       <div class="date">
18513         14th May 2010
18514       </div>
18515       <div class="body">
18516         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
18517 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
18518 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
18519 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
18520 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
18521 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
18522 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
18523 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
18524
18525 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
18526 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
18527 this on the collector host:</p>
18528
18529 <blockquote><pre>
18530 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
18531 </pre></blockquote>
18532
18533 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
18534 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
18535
18536 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
18537 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
18538 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
18539 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
18540 written yet.</p>
18541
18542       </div>
18543       <div class="tags">
18544
18545
18546         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>.
18547
18548
18549       </div>
18550     </div>
18551     <div class="padding"></div>
18552
18553     <div class="entry">
18554       <div class="title">
18555         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
18556       </div>
18557       <div class="date">
18558         13th May 2010
18559       </div>
18560       <div class="body">
18561         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
18562 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
18563 has been
18564 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
18565
18566 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
18567 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
18568 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
18569 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
18570 based boot system.  Tollef is
18571 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
18572 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
18573 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
18574 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
18575 at the moment do not.</p>
18576
18577 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
18578 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
18579 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
18580 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
18581 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
18582 way forward.</p>
18583
18584 <p>In the mean time, based on the
18585 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
18586 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
18587 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
18588 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
18589 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
18590 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
18591 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
18592 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
18593
18594       </div>
18595       <div class="tags">
18596
18597
18598         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>.
18599
18600
18601       </div>
18602     </div>
18603     <div class="padding"></div>
18604
18605     <div class="entry">
18606       <div class="title">
18607         <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>
18608       </div>
18609       <div class="date">
18610          6th May 2010
18611       </div>
18612       <div class="body">
18613         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
18614 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
18615 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
18616 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
18617 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
18618 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
18619 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
18620
18621 <blockquote><pre>
18622 CONCURRENCY=makefile
18623 </pre></blockquote>
18624
18625 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
18626 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
18627 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
18628 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
18629 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
18630 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
18631 make this happen.</p>
18632
18633 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
18634 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
18635 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
18636 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
18637 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
18638
18639 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
18640 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
18641 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
18642 fix the remaining issues.</p>
18643
18644 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
18645 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
18646 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
18647 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
18648
18649       </div>
18650       <div class="tags">
18651
18652
18653         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>.
18654
18655
18656       </div>
18657     </div>
18658     <div class="padding"></div>
18659
18660     <div class="entry">
18661       <div class="title">
18662         <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>
18663       </div>
18664       <div class="date">
18665          2nd May 2010
18666       </div>
18667       <div class="body">
18668         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
18669 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
18670 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
18671
18672 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
18673 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
18674 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
18675 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
18676 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
18677
18678 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
18679 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
18680
18681 <blockquote><pre>
18682 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
18683 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
18684 Password expires                                        : never
18685 Password inactive                                       : never
18686 Account expires                                         : never
18687 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
18688 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
18689 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
18690 root@tjener:~#
18691 </pre></blockquote>
18692
18693 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
18694 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
18695 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
18696 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
18697 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
18698 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
18699
18700 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
18701 intended:</p>
18702
18703 <blockquote><pre>
18704 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
18705 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
18706 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
18707 Password expires                                        : never
18708 Password inactive                                       : never
18709 Account expires                                         : never
18710 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
18711 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
18712 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
18713 root@tjener:~#
18714 </pre></blockquote>
18715
18716 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
18717 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
18718 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
18719
18720 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
18721 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
18722
18723 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
18724 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18725
18726 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
18727 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
18728 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
18729 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
18730 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
18731 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
18732 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
18733
18734 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
18735 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
18736 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
18737 change.</p>
18738
18739       </div>
18740       <div class="tags">
18741
18742
18743         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
18744
18745
18746       </div>
18747     </div>
18748     <div class="padding"></div>
18749
18750     <div class="entry">
18751       <div class="title">
18752         <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>
18753       </div>
18754       <div class="date">
18755         28th April 2010
18756       </div>
18757       <div class="body">
18758         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
18759 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
18760 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
18761 and go.</p>
18762
18763 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
18764 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
18765 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
18766 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
18767
18768 <ul>
18769
18770  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
18771    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
18772    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
18773    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
18774    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
18775    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
18776    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
18777    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
18778    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
18779    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
18780    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
18781    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
18782
18783  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
18784    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
18785    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
18786    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
18787    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
18788    or the Fedora developed
18789    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
18790    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
18791
18792  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
18793    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
18794    directory, using unison.</li>
18795
18796  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
18797    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
18798    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
18799    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
18800    implemented.</li>
18801
18802  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
18803    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
18804
18805  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
18806    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
18807    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
18808
18809 </ul>
18810
18811 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
18812 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
18813 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
18814 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
18815 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
18816 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
18817 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
18818 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
18819 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
18820
18821 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
18822 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
18823
18824       </div>
18825       <div class="tags">
18826
18827
18828         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
18829
18830
18831       </div>
18832     </div>
18833     <div class="padding"></div>
18834
18835     <div class="entry">
18836       <div class="title">
18837         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
18838       </div>
18839       <div class="date">
18840         19th April 2010
18841       </div>
18842       <div class="body">
18843         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
18844 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
18845 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
18846 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
18847 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
18848 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
18849 restrictions on the web, for example from
18850 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
18851 epub-version from
18852 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
18853 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
18854 strongly recommend this book.</p>
18855
18856       </div>
18857       <div class="tags">
18858
18859
18860         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>.
18861
18862
18863       </div>
18864     </div>
18865     <div class="padding"></div>
18866
18867     <div class="entry">
18868       <div class="title">
18869         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
18870       </div>
18871       <div class="date">
18872         14th April 2010
18873       </div>
18874       <div class="body">
18875         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
18876 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
18877 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
18878 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
18879 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
18880 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
18881 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
18882 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
18883 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
18884
18885 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
18886 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
18887 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
18888 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
18889 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
18890
18891 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
18892 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
18893
18894 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
18895 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
18896 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
18897 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
18898 to work properly.</p>
18899
18900 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
18901 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
18902 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
18903 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
18904 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
18905 time.</p>
18906
18907 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
18908 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
18909 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
18910 up in a few days.</p>
18911
18912       </div>
18913       <div class="tags">
18914
18915
18916         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
18917
18918
18919       </div>
18920     </div>
18921     <div class="padding"></div>
18922
18923     <div class="entry">
18924       <div class="title">
18925         <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>
18926       </div>
18927       <div class="date">
18928          6th March 2010
18929       </div>
18930       <div class="body">
18931         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
18932 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
18933 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
18934 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
18935 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
18936 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
18937
18938 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
18939 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
18940 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
18941 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
18942
18943 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
18944 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
18945 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
18946 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
18947 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
18948 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
18949
18950       </div>
18951       <div class="tags">
18952
18953
18954         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
18955
18956
18957       </div>
18958     </div>
18959     <div class="padding"></div>
18960
18961     <div class="entry">
18962       <div class="title">
18963         <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>
18964       </div>
18965       <div class="date">
18966         11th February 2010
18967       </div>
18968       <div class="body">
18969         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
18970 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
18971 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
18972 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
18973 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
18974 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
18975 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
18976
18977 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
18978
18979 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
18980 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
18981 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
18982 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
18983
18984       </div>
18985       <div class="tags">
18986
18987
18988         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
18989
18990
18991       </div>
18992     </div>
18993     <div class="padding"></div>
18994
18995     <div class="entry">
18996       <div class="title">
18997         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
18998       </div>
18999       <div class="date">
19000         27th January 2010
19001       </div>
19002       <div class="body">
19003         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
19004 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
19005 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
19006 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
19007 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
19008 further.</p>
19009
19010 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
19011 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
19012 configured to be a server for the
19013 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
19014 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
19015 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
19016 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
19017 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
19018 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
19019 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
19020 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
19021 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
19022 and Nagios configuration.</p>
19023
19024 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
19025 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
19026 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
19027 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
19028
19029 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
19030 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
19031 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
19032 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
19033 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
19034 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
19035 the machine.</p>
19036
19037 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
19038 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
19039 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
19040 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
19041
19042 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
19043 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
19044 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
19045 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
19046 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
19047 everything is taken care of.</p>
19048
19049       </div>
19050       <div class="tags">
19051
19052
19053         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
19054
19055
19056       </div>
19057     </div>
19058     <div class="padding"></div>
19059
19060     <div class="entry">
19061       <div class="title">
19062         <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>
19063       </div>
19064       <div class="date">
19065         12th August 2009
19066       </div>
19067       <div class="body">
19068         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
19069 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
19070 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
19071 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
19072
19073 <table>
19074 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
19075 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
19076 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
19077 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
19078 </table>
19079
19080 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
19081 got these numbers:</p>
19082
19083 <table>
19084 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
19085 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
19086 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
19087 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
19088 </table>
19089
19090 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
19091
19092 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
19093 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
19094 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
19095 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
19096 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
19097
19098
19099 <table>
19100 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
19101 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
19102 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
19103 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
19104 </table>
19105
19106 <p>And with 'site:no':
19107
19108 <table>
19109 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
19110 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
19111 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
19112 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
19113 </table>
19114
19115 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
19116 numbers.</p>
19117
19118       </div>
19119       <div class="tags">
19120
19121
19122         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>.
19123
19124
19125       </div>
19126     </div>
19127     <div class="padding"></div>
19128
19129     <div class="entry">
19130       <div class="title">
19131         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
19132       </div>
19133       <div class="date">
19134          8th August 2009
19135       </div>
19136       <div class="body">
19137         <p>According to <a
19138 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
19139 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
19140 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
19141 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
19142 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
19143 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
19144 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
19145 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
19146 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
19147 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
19148
19149 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
19150 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
19151 seminar this autumn.</p>
19152
19153       </div>
19154       <div class="tags">
19155
19156
19157         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>.
19158
19159
19160       </div>
19161     </div>
19162     <div class="padding"></div>
19163
19164     <div class="entry">
19165       <div class="title">
19166         <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>
19167       </div>
19168       <div class="date">
19169         27th July 2009
19170       </div>
19171       <div class="body">
19172         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
19173 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
19174 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
19175 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
19176 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
19177 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
19178 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
19179
19180 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
19181 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
19182 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
19183
19184       </div>
19185       <div class="tags">
19186
19187
19188         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>.
19189
19190
19191       </div>
19192     </div>
19193     <div class="padding"></div>
19194
19195     <div class="entry">
19196       <div class="title">
19197         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
19198       </div>
19199       <div class="date">
19200         22nd July 2009
19201       </div>
19202       <div class="body">
19203         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
19204 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
19205 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
19206 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
19207 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
19208 the package up to date.</p>
19209
19210 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
19211 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
19212 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
19213 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
19214 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
19215 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
19216 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
19217 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
19218 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
19219 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
19220 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
19221 working on the future release.</p>
19222
19223 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
19224 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
19225
19226       </div>
19227       <div class="tags">
19228
19229
19230         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>.
19231
19232
19233       </div>
19234     </div>
19235     <div class="padding"></div>
19236
19237     <div class="entry">
19238       <div class="title">
19239         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
19240       </div>
19241       <div class="date">
19242         24th June 2009
19243       </div>
19244       <div class="body">
19245         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
19246 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
19247 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
19248 funded
19249 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
19250 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
19251 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
19252 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
19253 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
19254 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
19255
19256 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
19257 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
19258 boot:</p>
19259
19260 <ul>
19261
19262 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
19263
19264 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
19265    clock is in UTC.</li>
19266
19267 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
19268    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
19269    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
19270
19271 </ul>
19272
19273 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
19274 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
19275 Villegas</a>.
19276
19277 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
19278 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
19279 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
19280 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
19281 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
19282 using this.</p>
19283
19284 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
19285 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
19286 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
19287 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
19288 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
19289 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
19290 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
19291
19292       </div>
19293       <div class="tags">
19294
19295
19296         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>.
19297
19298
19299       </div>
19300     </div>
19301     <div class="padding"></div>
19302
19303     <div class="entry">
19304       <div class="title">
19305         <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>
19306       </div>
19307       <div class="date">
19308          2nd May 2009
19309       </div>
19310       <div class="body">
19311         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
19312 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
19313 do not yet know them.</p>
19314
19315 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
19316 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
19317 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
19318 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
19319 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
19320 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
19321 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
19322 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
19323 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
19324 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
19325 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
19326
19327 <p>The second one is
19328 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
19329 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
19330 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
19331 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
19332 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
19333 and the company behind it is running
19334 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
19335 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
19336 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
19337 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
19338 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
19339 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
19340 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
19341 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
19342
19343 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
19344 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
19345 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
19346 surrounded by today.</p>
19347
19348       </div>
19349       <div class="tags">
19350
19351
19352         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>.
19353
19354
19355       </div>
19356     </div>
19357     <div class="padding"></div>
19358
19359     <div class="entry">
19360       <div class="title">
19361         <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>
19362       </div>
19363       <div class="date">
19364         28th April 2009
19365       </div>
19366       <div class="body">
19367         <p>Julien Blache
19368 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
19369 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
19370 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
19371 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
19372 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
19373 properties.</p>
19374
19375       </div>
19376       <div class="tags">
19377
19378
19379         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>.
19380
19381
19382       </div>
19383     </div>
19384     <div class="padding"></div>
19385
19386     <div class="entry">
19387       <div class="title">
19388         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
19389       </div>
19390       <div class="date">
19391          5th April 2009
19392       </div>
19393       <div class="body">
19394         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
19395 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
19396 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
19397 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
19398 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
19399 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
19400 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
19401 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
19402
19403 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
19404 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
19405 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
19406   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
19407   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
19408
19409 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
19410 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
19411 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
19412 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
19413
19414 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
19415 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
19416 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
19417 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
19418
19419 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
19420 set -e
19421 URL="$1"
19422 SAVEFILE="$2"
19423 DURATION="$3"
19424 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
19425   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
19426   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
19427 pid=$!
19428 sleep $DURATION
19429 kill $pid
19430 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
19431
19432       </div>
19433       <div class="tags">
19434
19435
19436         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>.
19437
19438
19439       </div>
19440     </div>
19441     <div class="padding"></div>
19442
19443     <div class="entry">
19444       <div class="title">
19445         <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>
19446       </div>
19447       <div class="date">
19448         30th March 2009
19449       </div>
19450       <div class="body">
19451         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
19452 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
19453 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
19454 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
19455 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
19456 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
19457 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
19458 application.</p>
19459
19460 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
19461 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
19462 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
19463 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
19464 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
19465 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
19466 blocked from doing so.</p>
19467
19468 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
19469 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
19470 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
19471 requirements change.</p>
19472
19473 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
19474 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
19475 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
19476
19477       </div>
19478       <div class="tags">
19479
19480
19481         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>.
19482
19483
19484       </div>
19485     </div>
19486     <div class="padding"></div>
19487
19488     <div class="entry">
19489       <div class="title">
19490         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
19491       </div>
19492       <div class="date">
19493         29th March 2009
19494       </div>
19495       <div class="body">
19496         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
19497 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
19498 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
19499 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
19500 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
19501 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
19502 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
19503 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
19504 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
19505 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
19506 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
19507 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
19508 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
19509 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
19510 now. :)</p>
19511
19512       </div>
19513       <div class="tags">
19514
19515
19516         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>.
19517
19518
19519       </div>
19520     </div>
19521     <div class="padding"></div>
19522
19523     <div class="entry">
19524       <div class="title">
19525         <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>
19526       </div>
19527       <div class="date">
19528         29th March 2009
19529       </div>
19530       <div class="body">
19531         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
19532 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
19533 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
19534 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
19535 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
19536 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
19537
19538 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
19539 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
19540 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
19541 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
19542 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
19543 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
19544 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
19545 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
19546 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
19547 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
19548 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
19549 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
19550 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
19551
19552 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
19553 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
19554 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
19555 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
19556
19557 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
19558 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
19559
19560 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
19561 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
19562 new IETF work group?</p>
19563
19564       </div>
19565       <div class="tags">
19566
19567
19568         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>.
19569
19570
19571       </div>
19572     </div>
19573     <div class="padding"></div>
19574
19575     <div class="entry">
19576       <div class="title">
19577         <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>
19578       </div>
19579       <div class="date">
19580         28th February 2009
19581       </div>
19582       <div class="body">
19583         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
19584 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
19585 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
19586 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
19587 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
19588 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
19589 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
19590 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
19591 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
19592 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
19593 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
19594 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
19595 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
19596 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
19597 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
19598 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
19599 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
19600 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
19601 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
19602 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
19603 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
19604 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
19605 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
19606 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
19607 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
19608 machine.</p>
19609
19610 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
19611 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
19612 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
19613 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
19614 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
19615 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
19616 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
19617
19618 <pre>
19619 use LWP::Simple;
19620 use POSIX;
19621 use WWW::Mechanize;
19622 use Date::Parse;
19623 [...]
19624 sub get_support_info {
19625     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
19626     my $str;
19627
19628     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
19629         # fetch website from Dell support
19630         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";
19631         my $webpage = get($url);
19632         return undef unless ($webpage);
19633
19634         my $daysleft = -1;
19635         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
19636         foreach my $line (@lines) {
19637             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
19638             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
19639             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
19640
19641             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
19642             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
19643             my $lastend = "";
19644             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
19645                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
19646
19647                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
19648                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
19649                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
19650                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
19651                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
19652                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
19653                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
19654             }
19655             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
19656             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
19657                 if ($lastend lt $today);
19658         }
19659     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
19660         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
19661         my $url =
19662             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
19663         $mech->get($url);
19664         my $fields = {
19665             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
19666             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
19667             'country' => 'NO',
19668             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
19669             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
19670         };
19671         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
19672                             fields      => $fields );
19673         # Next step is screen scraping
19674         my $content = $mech->content();
19675
19676         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
19677         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
19678         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
19679         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
19680
19681         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
19682
19683         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
19684             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
19685                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
19686             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
19687             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
19688                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
19689             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
19690                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
19691
19692             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
19693
19694             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
19695                 if ($end lt $today);
19696         }
19697     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
19698         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
19699         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
19700         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
19701             my $content =
19702                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
19703             if ($content) {
19704                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
19705                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
19706                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
19707                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
19708
19709                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
19710                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
19711
19712                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
19713
19714                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
19715                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
19716                     if ($end lt $today);
19717             }
19718         }
19719     }
19720     return $str;
19721 }
19722 </pre>
19723
19724 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
19725 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
19726 from dmidecode.</p>
19727
19728 <pre>
19729 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
19730                        "447707-B21");
19731 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
19732 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
19733                        "1234567");
19734 </pre>
19735
19736 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
19737 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
19738
19739 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
19740 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
19741 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
19742 do so.</p>
19743
19744       </div>
19745       <div class="tags">
19746
19747
19748         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>.
19749
19750
19751       </div>
19752     </div>
19753     <div class="padding"></div>
19754
19755     <div class="entry">
19756       <div class="title">
19757         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
19758       </div>
19759       <div class="date">
19760         20th February 2009
19761       </div>
19762       <div class="body">
19763         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
19764 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
19765 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
19766 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
19767 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
19768 the "missing" computer.</p>
19769
19770 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
19771 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
19772 code blocks as defined in the
19773 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
19774 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
19775 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
19776 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
19777 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
19778 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
19779 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
19780 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
19781 codes.</p>
19782
19783 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
19784 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
19785 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
19786 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
19787 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
19788 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
19789
19790 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
19791 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
19792 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
19793 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
19794 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
19795 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
19796 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
19797 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
19798 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
19799 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
19800
19801 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
19802 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
19803 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
19804
19805       </div>
19806       <div class="tags">
19807
19808
19809         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>.
19810
19811
19812       </div>
19813     </div>
19814     <div class="padding"></div>
19815
19816     <div class="entry">
19817       <div class="title">
19818         <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>
19819       </div>
19820       <div class="date">
19821         17th January 2009
19822       </div>
19823       <div class="body">
19824         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
19825 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
19826 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
19827 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
19828 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
19829 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
19830 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
19831 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
19832 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
19833 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
19834 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
19835 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
19836 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
19837 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
19838
19839 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
19840 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
19841 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
19842 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
19843 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
19844 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
19845 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
19846 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
19847 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
19848 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
19849 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
19850 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
19851 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
19852 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
19853 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
19854 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
19855 playing when the download is done.</p>
19856
19857 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
19858 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
19859 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
19860 too.</p>
19861
19862 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
19863 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
19864 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
19865 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
19866
19867       </div>
19868       <div class="tags">
19869
19870
19871         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>.
19872
19873
19874       </div>
19875     </div>
19876     <div class="padding"></div>
19877
19878     <div class="entry">
19879       <div class="title">
19880         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
19881       </div>
19882       <div class="date">
19883         28th December 2008
19884       </div>
19885       <div class="body">
19886         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
19887 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
19888 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
19889 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
19890 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
19891 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
19892 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
19893 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
19894 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
19895 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
19896 source, sink and mixer applications and
19897 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
19898 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
19899 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
19900 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
19901 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
19902 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
19903 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
19904 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
19905 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
19906
19907 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
19908 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
19909 larger stick as well.</p>
19910
19911       </div>
19912       <div class="tags">
19913
19914
19915         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>.
19916
19917
19918       </div>
19919     </div>
19920     <div class="padding"></div>
19921
19922     <div class="entry">
19923       <div class="title">
19924         <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>
19925       </div>
19926       <div class="date">
19927          7th December 2008
19928       </div>
19929       <div class="body">
19930         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
19931 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
19932 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
19933 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
19934 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
19935 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
19936 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
19937 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
19938
19939 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
19940 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
19941 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
19942 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
19943 of these cards.</p>
19944
19945       </div>
19946       <div class="tags">
19947
19948
19949         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>.
19950
19951
19952       </div>
19953     </div>
19954     <div class="padding"></div>
19955
19956     <div class="entry">
19957       <div class="title">
19958         <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>
19959       </div>
19960       <div class="date">
19961         25th November 2008
19962       </div>
19963       <div class="body">
19964         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
19965 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
19966 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
19967 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
19968 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
19969 notes are available on
19970 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
19971 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
19972 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
19973 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
19974 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
19975 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
19976 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
19977 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
19978 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
19979
19980 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
19981 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
19982
19983       </div>
19984       <div class="tags">
19985
19986
19987         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>.
19988
19989
19990       </div>
19991     </div>
19992     <div class="padding"></div>
19993
19994     <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>
19995     <div id="sidebar">
19996
19997
19998
19999 <h2>Archive</h2>
20000 <ul>
20001
20002 <li>2014
20003 <ul>
20004
20005 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
20006
20007 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
20008
20009 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
20010
20011 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
20012
20013 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
20014
20015 </ul></li>
20016
20017 <li>2013
20018 <ul>
20019
20020 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
20021
20022 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
20023
20024 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
20025
20026 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
20027
20028 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
20029
20030 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
20031
20032 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
20033
20034 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
20035
20036 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
20037
20038 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
20039
20040 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
20041
20042 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
20043
20044 </ul></li>
20045
20046 <li>2012
20047 <ul>
20048
20049 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
20050
20051 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
20052
20053 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
20054
20055 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
20056
20057 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
20058
20059 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
20060
20061 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
20062
20063 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
20064
20065 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
20066
20067 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
20068
20069 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
20070
20071 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
20072
20073 </ul></li>
20074
20075 <li>2011
20076 <ul>
20077
20078 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
20079
20080 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
20081
20082 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
20083
20084 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
20085
20086 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
20087
20088 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
20089
20090 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
20091
20092 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
20093
20094 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
20095
20096 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
20097
20098 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
20099
20100 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
20101
20102 </ul></li>
20103
20104 <li>2010
20105 <ul>
20106
20107 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
20108
20109 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
20110
20111 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
20112
20113 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
20114
20115 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
20116
20117 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
20118
20119 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
20120
20121 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
20122
20123 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
20124
20125 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
20126
20127 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
20128
20129 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
20130
20131 </ul></li>
20132
20133 <li>2009
20134 <ul>
20135
20136 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
20137
20138 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
20139
20140 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
20141
20142 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
20143
20144 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
20145
20146 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
20147
20148 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
20149
20150 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
20151
20152 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
20153
20154 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
20155
20156 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
20157
20158 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
20159
20160 </ul></li>
20161
20162 <li>2008
20163 <ul>
20164
20165 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
20166
20167 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
20168
20169 </ul></li>
20170
20171 </ul>
20172
20173
20174
20175 <h2>Tags</h2>
20176 <ul>
20177
20178  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
20179
20180  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
20181
20182  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
20183
20184  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
20185
20186  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
20187
20188  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (14)</a></li>
20189
20190  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
20191
20192  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
20193
20194  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (98)</a></li>
20195
20196  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (146)</a></li>
20197
20198  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
20199
20200  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
20201
20202  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
20203
20204  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
20205
20206  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (247)</a></li>
20207
20208  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
20209
20210  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
20211
20212  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
20213
20214  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (8)</a></li>
20215
20216  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
20217
20218  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (40)</a></li>
20219
20220  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (9)</a></li>
20221
20222  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
20223
20224  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
20225
20226  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (7)</a></li>
20227
20228  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
20229
20230  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
20231
20232  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (27)</a></li>
20233
20234  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (245)</a></li>
20235
20236  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (162)</a></li>
20237
20238  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (11)</a></li>
20239
20240  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
20241
20242  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (46)</a></li>
20243
20244  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (72)</a></li>
20245
20246  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
20247
20248  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
20249
20250  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
20251
20252  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
20253
20254  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
20255
20256  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
20257
20258  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
20259
20260  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
20261
20262  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (40)</a></li>
20263
20264  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
20265
20266  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
20267
20268  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (44)</a></li>
20269
20270  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
20271
20272  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
20273
20274  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (25)</a></li>
20275
20276  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
20277
20278  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
20279
20280  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (41)</a></li>
20281
20282  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
20283
20284  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (31)</a></li>
20285
20286 </ul>
20287
20288
20289     </div>
20290     <p style="text-align: right">
20291  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
20292 </p>
20293
20294   </body>
20295 </html>