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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_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>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         21st July 2012
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
  32 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
  33 norwegian version</a> of the book
  34 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
  35 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
  36 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
  37 PDF and EPUB version of this book is available from
  38 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
  39
  40 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
  41 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
  42 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
  43 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
  44 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
  45 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
  46 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
  47 you got time and am willing to help make this book make it to
  48 print. :)</p>
  49
  50 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
  51 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
  52 language.</p>
  53
  54       </div>
  55       <div class="tags">
  56
  57
  58         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/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
  59
  60
  61       </div>
  62     </div>
  63     <div class="padding"></div>
  64
  65     <div class="entry">
  66       <div class="title">
  67         <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>
  68       </div>
  69       <div class="date">
  70         16th July 2012
  71       </div>
  72       <div class="body">
  73         <p>I am currently working on a
  74 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
  75 to translate</a> the book
  76 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
  77 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
  78 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
  79 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
  80 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
  81 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
  82 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
  83
  84 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
  85 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
  86 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
  87 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
  88 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
  89 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
  90 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
  91 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
  92 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
  93
  94       </div>
  95       <div class="tags">
  96
  97
  98         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/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
  99
 100
 101       </div>
 102     </div>
 103     <div class="padding"></div>
 104
 105     <div class="entry">
 106       <div class="title">
 107         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
 108       </div>
 109       <div class="date">
 110          9th July 2012
 111       </div>
 112       <div class="body">
 113         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
 114 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
 115 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
 116 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
 117 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
 118 to adjust and scale the just released
 119 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
 120 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
 121 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
 122
 123 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 124
 125 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
 126 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
 127 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
 128 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
 129 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
 130 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
 131 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
 132 perspective when working with IT.</p>
 133
 134 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
 135 project?</strong></p>
 136
 137 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
 138 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
 139 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
 140 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
 141 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
 142 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
 143
 144 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 145 Edu?</strong></p>
 146
 147 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
 148 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
 149 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
 150 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
 151 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
 152 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
 153 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
 154 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
 155 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
 156 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
 157 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
 158 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
 159 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
 160 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
 161 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
 162 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
 163 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
 164 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
 165 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
 166 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
 167 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
 168 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
 169 quicker to update.
 170
 171 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 172 Edu?</strong></p>
 173
 174 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
 175 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
 176 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
 177 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
 178 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
 179 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
 180
 181 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
 182 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
 183 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
 184 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
 185 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
 186 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
 187 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
 188 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
 189 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
 190 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
 191 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
 192 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
 193 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
 194 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
 195 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
 196
 197 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
 198 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
 199 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
 200 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
 201 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
 202 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
 203 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
 204 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
 205
 206 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
 207 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
 208 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
 209 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
 210 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
 211 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
 212 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
 213 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
 214 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
 215 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
 216 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
 217 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
 218 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
 219 sound file.</p>
 220
 221 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
 222 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
 223 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
 224 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
 225 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
 226 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
 227 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
 228 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
 229 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
 230
 231 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 232
 233 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
 234 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
 235 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
 236 )</p>
 237
 238 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 239 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 240
 241 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
 242 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
 243 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
 244 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
 245 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
 246 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
 247 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
 248 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
 249 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
 250 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
 251 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
 252 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
 253 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
 254 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
 255 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
 256
 257 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
 258 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
 259 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
 260 management with Airtime</a>,
 261 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
 262 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
 263 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
 264 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
 265 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
 266
 267       </div>
 268       <div class="tags">
 269
 270
 271         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
 272
 273
 274       </div>
 275     </div>
 276     <div class="padding"></div>
 277
 278     <div class="entry">
 279       <div class="title">
 280         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
 281       </div>
 282       <div class="date">
 283          8th July 2012
 284       </div>
 285       <div class="body">
 286         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
 287 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
 288 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
 289 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
 290 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
 291 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
 292 Steinberg in his blog post
 293 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
 294 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
 295 spending of your tax money.</p>
 296
 297 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
 298 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
 299 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
 300 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
 301 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
 302 purchases.</p>
 303
 304       </div>
 305       <div class="tags">
 306
 307
 308         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 309
 310
 311       </div>
 312     </div>
 313     <div class="padding"></div>
 314
 315     <div class="entry">
 316       <div class="title">
 317         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
 318       </div>
 319       <div class="date">
 320          7th July 2012
 321       </div>
 322       <div class="body">
 323         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
 324 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
 325 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
 326 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
 327 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
 328 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
 329 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
 330 receive.  The software is
 331
 332 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
 333 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
 334 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
 335 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
 336 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
 337 Windows</a>.</p>
 338
 339 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
 340 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
 341
 342 <p><ul>
 343
 344   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
 345     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
 346
 347   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
 348     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
 349     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
 350     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
 351     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
 352     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
 353     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
 354     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
 355     </li>
 356
 357   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
 358     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
 359
 360   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
 361     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
 362
 363   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
 364     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
 365
 366   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
 367
 368   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
 369     formats </li>
 370
 371   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
 372     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
 373     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
 374     (as separate sets)</li>
 375
 376   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
 377     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
 378     percentage)</li>
 379
 380   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
 381     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
 382     memory):
 383     <ul>
 384       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
 385       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
 386       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
 387       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
 388       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
 389       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
 390       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
 391       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
 392       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
 393       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
 394           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
 395           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
 396           activity)</li>
 397       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
 398       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
 399     </ul></li>
 400
 401   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
 402     <ul>
 403       <li>Break periods</li>
 404       <li>For teacher(s):
 405         <ul>
 406           <li>Not available periods</li>
 407           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
 408           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
 409           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
 410           <li>Min hours daily</li>
 411           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
 412
 413           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
 414             days per week</li>
 415         </ul></li>
 416       <li>For students (sets):
 417         <ul>
 418           <li>Not available periods</li>
 419           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
 420           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
 421           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
 422           <li>Min hours daily</li>
 423           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
 424
 425           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
 426             days per week</li>
 427         </ul></li>
 428       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
 429         <ul>
 430           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
 431           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
 432           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
 433           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
 434           <li>End(s) students day</li>
 435           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
 436           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
 437             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
 438           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
 439           <li>Not overlapping</li>
 440           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
 441           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
 442         </ul></li>
 443     </ul></li>
 444
 445   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
 446     <ul>
 447       <li>Room not available periods</li>
 448       <li>For teacher(s):
 449         <ul>
 450           <li>Home room(s)</li>
 451           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
 452           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
 453         </ul>
 454       </li>
 455
 456       <li>For students (sets):
 457         <ul>
 458           <li>Home room(s)</li>
 459           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
 460           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
 461         </ul>
 462       </li>
 463       <li>Preferred room(s):
 464         <ul>
 465           <li>For a subject</li>
 466           <li>For an activity tag</li>
 467           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
 468           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
 469         </ul>
 470       </li>
 471
 472       <li>For a set of activities:
 473         <ul>
 474           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
 475         </ul>
 476       </li>
 477     </ul>
 478   </li>
 479 </ul></p>
 480
 481 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
 482 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
 483 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
 484 manually, check it out.
 485
 486 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
 487 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
 488 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
 489 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
 490 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
 491 section</a>.</p>
 492
 493       </div>
 494       <div class="tags">
 495
 496
 497         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 498
 499
 500       </div>
 501     </div>
 502     <div class="padding"></div>
 503
 504     <div class="entry">
 505       <div class="title">
 506         <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>
 507       </div>
 508       <div class="date">
 509          3rd July 2012
 510       </div>
 511       <div class="body">
 512         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
 513 project (Norwegian version of
 514 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
 515 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
 516 a problem with the municipalities using
 517 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
 518 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
 519 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
 520 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
 521 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
 522 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
 523 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
 524 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
 525 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
 526 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
 527 the From: header.</p>
 528
 529 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
 530 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
 531 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
 532 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
 533 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
 534 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
 535 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
 536 behaviour.</p>
 537
 538 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
 539 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
 540 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
 541 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
 542 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
 543 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
 544 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
 545
 546       </div>
 547       <div class="tags">
 548
 549
 550         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>.
 551
 552
 553       </div>
 554     </div>
 555     <div class="padding"></div>
 556
 557     <div class="entry">
 558       <div class="title">
 559         <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>
 560       </div>
 561       <div class="date">
 562         26th June 2012
 563       </div>
 564       <div class="body">
 565         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
 566 another interview with the people behind
 567 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
 568 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
 569 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
 570 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
 571 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
 572 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
 573 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
 574
 575 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 576
 577 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
 578 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
 579 ICT in schools</p>
 580
 581 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
 582 project?</strong></p>
 583
 584 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
 585 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
 586 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
 587 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
 588
 589 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 590 Edu?</strong></p>
 591
 592 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
 593 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
 594 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
 595 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
 596
 597 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 598 Edu?</strong></p>
 599
 600 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
 601 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
 602 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
 603 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
 604 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
 605 technologies in school.</p>
 606
 607 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 608
 609 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
 610 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
 611 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
 612
 613 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 614 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 615
 616 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
 617 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
 618 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
 619 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
 620
 621 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
 622 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
 623 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
 624
 625 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
 626 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
 627 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
 628 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
 629 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
 630 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
 631 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
 632 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
 633 working there.</p>
 634
 635       </div>
 636       <div class="tags">
 637
 638
 639         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
 640
 641
 642       </div>
 643     </div>
 644     <div class="padding"></div>
 645
 646     <div class="entry">
 647       <div class="title">
 648         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
 649       </div>
 650       <div class="date">
 651         24th June 2012
 652       </div>
 653       <div class="body">
 654         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
 655 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
 656 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
 657 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
 658 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
 659 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
 660 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
 661 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
 662 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
 663 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
 664 missing in my book.</p>
 665
 666 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
 667 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
 668 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
 669 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
 670 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
 671 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
 672 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
 673
 674       </div>
 675       <div class="tags">
 676
 677
 678         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>.
 679
 680
 681       </div>
 682     </div>
 683     <div class="padding"></div>
 684
 685     <div class="entry">
 686       <div class="title">
 687         <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>
 688       </div>
 689       <div class="date">
 690         11th June 2012
 691       </div>
 692       <div class="body">
 693         <p>During my work on
 694 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
 695 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
 696 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
 697 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
 698 explanation.</p>
 699
 700 <p><ul>
 701
 702 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
 703 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
 704 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
 705 system depend on tasksel tasks in
 706 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
 707 installation.</li>
 708
 709 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
 710 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
 711 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
 712 at least try to enable it for these services:
 713 <ul>
 714
 715   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
 716     quotas.</li>
 717   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
 718   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
 719   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
 720   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
 721   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
 722
 723 </ul></li>
 724
 725 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
 726 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
 727 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
 728 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
 729
 730 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
 731 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
 732 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
 733
 734 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
 735 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
 736 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
 737 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
 738 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
 739 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
 740
 741 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
 742 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
 743 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
 744 in Wheezy.
 745
 746 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
 747 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
 748 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
 749
 750 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
 751 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
 752 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
 753 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
 754
 755 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
 756 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
 757 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
 758 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
 759
 760 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
 761 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
 762 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
 763
 764 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
 765 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
 766 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
 767
 768 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
 769 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
 770 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
 771 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
 772 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
 773
 774 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
 775 <ul>
 776
 777 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
 778 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
 779 <li>and probably more?</li>
 780 </ul></li>
 781
 782 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
 783 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
 784 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
 785 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
 786 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
 787 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
 788 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
 789 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
 790
 791
 792 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
 793 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
 794 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
 795 use.</li>
 796
 797 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
 798 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
 799 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
 800 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
 801 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
 802
 803 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
 804 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
 805 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
 806 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
 807 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
 808 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
 809
 810 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
 811 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
 812 There are at least three implementations,
 813 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
 814 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
 815 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
 816 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
 817 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
 818 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
 819 given room.</li>
 820
 821 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
 822 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
 823 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
 824 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
 825 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
 826 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
 827 investigated.</li>
 828
 829 </ul></p>
 830
 831 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
 832 version.</p>
 833
 834       </div>
 835       <div class="tags">
 836
 837
 838         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 839
 840
 841       </div>
 842     </div>
 843     <div class="padding"></div>
 844
 845     <div class="entry">
 846       <div class="title">
 847         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html">TV with face recognition, for improved viewer experience</a>
 848       </div>
 849       <div class="date">
 850          9th June 2012
 851       </div>
 852       <div class="body">
 853         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
 854 <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
 855 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
 856 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
 857 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
 858 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
 859 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
 860 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
 861 be willing to pay for.</p>
 862
 863 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
 864 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
 865 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
 866 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
 867 Orwell</a>.</p>
 868
 869       </div>
 870       <div class="tags">
 871
 872
 873         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>.
 874
 875
 876       </div>
 877     </div>
 878     <div class="padding"></div>
 879
 880     <div class="entry">
 881       <div class="title">
 882         <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>
 883       </div>
 884       <div class="date">
 885          6th June 2012
 886       </div>
 887       <div class="body">
 888         <p>A few days ago
 889 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
 890 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
 891 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
 892 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
 893 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
 894 code for HP, Dell and IBM
 895 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
 896 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
 897 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
 898 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
 899 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
 900
 901 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
 902 output:
 903
 904 <blockquote><pre>
 905 % 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>
 906 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": ""})
 907 %
 908 </pre></blockquote>
 909
 910 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
 911 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
 912 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
 913
 914       </div>
 915       <div class="tags">
 916
 917
 918         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>.
 919
 920
 921       </div>
 922     </div>
 923     <div class="padding"></div>
 924
 925     <div class="entry">
 926       <div class="title">
 927         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
 928       </div>
 929       <div class="date">
 930          2nd June 2012
 931       </div>
 932       <div class="body">
 933         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
 934 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
 935 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
 936 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
 937 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
 938 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
 939
 940 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 941
 942 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
 943 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
 944 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
 945 by Angela).</p>
 946
 947 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
 948 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
 949 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
 950 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
 951 becoming an osteopath.</p>
 952
 953 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
 954 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
 955 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
 956 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
 957 skills with communication skills.</p>
 958
 959 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
 960 project?</strong></p>
 961
 962 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
 963 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
 964 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
 965 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
 966 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
 967
 968 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
 969 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
 970 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
 971 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
 972 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
 973 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
 974 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
 975 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
 976 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
 977
 978 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
 979 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
 980 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
 981
 982 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
 983
 984 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
 985 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
 986 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
 987 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
 988 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
 989 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
 990 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
 991 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
 992 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
 993 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
 994 point.</p>
 995
 996 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
 997 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
 998 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
 999 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
1000 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
1001 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
1002
1003 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
1004 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
1005 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
1006 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
1007 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
1008 spare time.</p>
1009
1010 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
1011 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
1012 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
1013 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
1014 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
1015
1016 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
1017 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
1018 avoidance do exist.</p>
1019
1020 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
1021 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
1022 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
1023 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
1024 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
1025 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
1026 and probably a gain for all.</p>
1027
1028 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1029 Edu?</strong></p>
1030
1031 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
1032 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
1033 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
1034 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
1035 project communication, honest communication within the group of
1036 developers, etc.</p>
1037
1038 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1039 Edu?</strong></p>
1040
1041 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
1042
1043 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
1044 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
1045 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
1046 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
1047 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
1048 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
1049 contribute).</p>
1050
1051 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
1052 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
1053 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
1054 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
1055 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
1056 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
1057 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
1058 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
1059 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
1060 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
1061
1062 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1063
1064 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
1065
1066 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
1067 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
1068 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
1069
1070 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
1071 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
1072 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
1073 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
1074
1075 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
1076 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
1077 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
1078 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
1079 whiteboard.</p>
1080
1081 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
1082
1083 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1084 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1085
1086 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
1087 enrol people.</p>
1088
1089       </div>
1090       <div class="tags">
1091
1092
1093         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1094
1095
1096       </div>
1097     </div>
1098     <div class="padding"></div>
1099
1100     <div class="entry">
1101       <div class="title">
1102         <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>
1103       </div>
1104       <div class="date">
1105          1st June 2012
1106       </div>
1107       <div class="body">
1108         <p>A few years ago I wrote
1109 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
1110 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
1111 I have learned from colleges here at the
1112 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
1113 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
1114 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
1115 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
1116 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
1117
1118 <p><pre>
1119 use strict;
1120 use warnings;
1121 use SOAP::Lite;
1122 use Data::Dumper;
1123 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
1124 my $App = 'test';
1125 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
1126 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
1127 my $s = SOAP::Lite
1128     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
1129     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
1130     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
1131     ;
1132 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
1133     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
1134     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
1135     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
1136 );
1137 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
1138 </pre></p>
1139
1140 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
1141
1142 <p><pre>
1143 $VAR1 = {
1144           'Asset' => {
1145                      'Entitlements' => {
1146                                        'EntitlementData' => [
1147                                                             {
1148                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
1149                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
1150                                                               'Provider' => '',
1151                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
1152                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
1153                                                             },
1154                                                             {
1155                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
1156                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
1157                                                               'Provider' => '',
1158                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
1159                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
1160                                                             },
1161                                                             {
1162                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
1163                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
1164                                                               'Provider' => '',
1165                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
1166                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
1167                                                             }
1168                                                           ]
1169                                      },
1170                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
1171                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
1172                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
1173                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
1174                                           'Buid' => '2323',
1175                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
1176                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
1177                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
1178                                         }
1179                    }
1180         };
1181 </pre></p>
1182
1183 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
1184 service outside the
1185 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
1186 documentation</a>, and according to
1187 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
1188 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
1189 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
1190
1191 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
1192 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
1193
1194       </div>
1195       <div class="tags">
1196
1197
1198         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>.
1199
1200
1201       </div>
1202     </div>
1203     <div class="padding"></div>
1204
1205     <div class="entry">
1206       <div class="title">
1207         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
1208       </div>
1209       <div class="date">
1210         31st May 2012
1211       </div>
1212       <div class="body">
1213         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
1214 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
1215 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
1216 running Debian Squeeze, where
1217 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
1218 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
1219 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
1220 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
1221 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
1222 another day.</p>
1223
1224 <p>After calibration, I get a
1225 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
1226 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
1227 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
1228 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
1229 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
1230 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
1231 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
1232 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
1233 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
1234 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
1235 and a simple</p>
1236
1237 <p><pre>
1238 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
1239 </pre></p>
1240
1241 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
1242 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
1243 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
1244 enough for now.</p>
1245
1246       </div>
1247       <div class="tags">
1248
1249
1250         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1251
1252
1253       </div>
1254     </div>
1255     <div class="padding"></div>
1256
1257     <div class="entry">
1258       <div class="title">
1259         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
1260       </div>
1261       <div class="date">
1262         27th May 2012
1263       </div>
1264       <div class="body">
1265         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
1266 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
1267 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
1268 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
1269 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
1270 since then, helping to make sure the
1271 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
1272 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
1273
1274 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1275
1276 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
1277 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
1278 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
1279 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
1280 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
1281 our computer network.</p>
1282
1283 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
1284 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
1285 (4 months).</p>
1286
1287 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1288 project?</strong></p>
1289
1290 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
1291 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
1292 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
1293 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
1294 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
1295 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
1296 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
1297 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
1298 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
1299 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
1300 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
1301 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
1302 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
1303 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
1304
1305 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1306 Edu?</strong></p>
1307
1308 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
1309 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
1310 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
1311 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
1312 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
1313 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
1314 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
1315 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
1316
1317 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1318 Edu?</strong></p>
1319
1320 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
1321 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
1322 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
1323 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
1324 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
1325 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
1326 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
1327 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
1328 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
1329 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
1330 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
1331 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
1332
1333 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1334
1335 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
1336 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
1337 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
1338
1339 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1340 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1341
1342 <p><ol>
1343
1344 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
1345 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
1346 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
1347 developing.</li>
1348
1349 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
1350 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
1351 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
1352 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
1353 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
1354
1355 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
1356 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
1357 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
1358
1359 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
1360 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
1361 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
1362 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
1363
1364 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
1365 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
1366 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
1367
1368 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
1369
1370 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
1371 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
1372 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
1373 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
1374
1375 </ol></p>
1376
1377       </div>
1378       <div class="tags">
1379
1380
1381         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1382
1383
1384       </div>
1385     </div>
1386     <div class="padding"></div>
1387
1388     <div class="entry">
1389       <div class="title">
1390         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
1391       </div>
1392       <div class="date">
1393         26th May 2012
1394       </div>
1395       <div class="body">
1396         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
1397 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
1398 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
1399 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
1400 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
1401
1402 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
1403 <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>
1404 comment:</p>
1405
1406 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
1407 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
1408 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
1409 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
1410 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
1411 </blockquote></p>
1412
1413 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
1414 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
1415 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
1416 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
1417 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
1418 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
1419 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
1420 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
1421 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
1422 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
1423 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
1424 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
1425 of wasted effort.</p>
1426
1427 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
1428 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
1429 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
1430
1431 <p>See
1432 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
1433 and
1434 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
1435 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
1436 </blockquote></p>
1437
1438       </div>
1439       <div class="tags">
1440
1441
1442         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>.
1443
1444
1445       </div>
1446     </div>
1447     <div class="padding"></div>
1448
1449     <div class="entry">
1450       <div class="title">
1451         <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>
1452       </div>
1453       <div class="date">
1454         18th May 2012
1455       </div>
1456       <div class="body">
1457         <p>In january, I
1458 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
1459 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
1460 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
1461 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
1462 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
1463 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
1464 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
1465 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
1466 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
1467 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
1468
1469 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
1470 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
1471 drivers. :)</p>
1472
1473       </div>
1474       <div class="tags">
1475
1476
1477         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1478
1479
1480       </div>
1481     </div>
1482     <div class="padding"></div>
1483
1484     <div class="entry">
1485       <div class="title">
1486         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
1487       </div>
1488       <div class="date">
1489         13th May 2012
1490       </div>
1491       <div class="body">
1492         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
1493 publish another interview with the people behind
1494 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
1495 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
1496 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
1497 details get right before release.
1498
1499 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1500
1501 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
1502 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
1503 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
1504 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
1505 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
1506 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
1507 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
1508 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
1509
1510 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
1511 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
1512 home since 2006.</p>
1513
1514 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1515 project?</strong></p>
1516
1517 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
1518 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
1519 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
1520 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
1521 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
1522 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
1523
1524 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
1525 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
1526 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
1527 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
1528 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
1529 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
1530 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
1531 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
1532 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
1533 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
1534 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
1535 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
1536 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
1537 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
1538 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
1539 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
1540
1541 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1542 Edu?</strong></p>
1543
1544 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
1545 for me as today.</p>
1546
1547 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
1548
1549 <p><ul>
1550
1551 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
1552 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
1553
1554 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
1555 cost.</li>
1556
1557 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
1558 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
1559 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
1560 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
1561 server</li>
1562
1563 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
1564 school.</li>
1565
1566 </ul></p>
1567
1568 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
1569 came up in this way:</p>
1570
1571 <p><ul>
1572
1573 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
1574 now.</li>
1575
1576 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
1577 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
1578 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
1579
1580 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
1581 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
1582 interfaces used in the past.</li>
1583
1584 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
1585 different needs.</li>
1586
1587 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
1588
1589 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
1590 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
1591 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
1592
1593 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
1594 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
1595
1596 </ul></p>
1597
1598 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1599 Edu?</strong></p>
1600
1601 <p><ul>
1602
1603 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
1604 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
1605 whole municipality areas.</li>
1606
1607 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
1608 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
1609 politicians.</li>
1610
1611 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
1612
1613 </ul></p>
1614
1615 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1616
1617 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
1618 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
1619 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
1620 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
1621 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
1622 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
1623
1624 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
1625 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
1626 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
1627 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
1628 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
1629
1630 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1631 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1632
1633 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
1634 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
1635 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
1636
1637       </div>
1638       <div class="tags">
1639
1640
1641         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1642
1643
1644       </div>
1645     </div>
1646     <div class="padding"></div>
1647
1648     <div class="entry">
1649       <div class="title">
1650         <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>
1651       </div>
1652       <div class="date">
1653         30th April 2012
1654       </div>
1655       <div class="body">
1656         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
1657 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
1658
1659 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
1660 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
1661 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
1662 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
1663 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
1664 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
1665 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
1666 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
1667 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
1668 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
1669 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
1670 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
1671 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
1672 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
1673 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
1674 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
1675
1676 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
1677 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
1678 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
1679 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
1680 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
1681 finally found a Danish supplier
1682 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
1683 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
1684 days ago.</p>
1685
1686 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
1687 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
1688 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
1689 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
1690 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
1691 toys.</p>
1692
1693       </div>
1694       <div class="tags">
1695
1696
1697         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1698
1699
1700       </div>
1701     </div>
1702     <div class="padding"></div>
1703
1704     <div class="entry">
1705       <div class="title">
1706         <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>
1707       </div>
1708       <div class="date">
1709         26th April 2012
1710       </div>
1711       <div class="body">
1712         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
1713 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
1714 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
1715 that the video editor application included with
1716 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
1717 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
1718 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
1719
1720 <p><blockquote>
1721 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
1722 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
1723 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
1724 </blockquote></p>
1725
1726 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
1727
1728 <p><blockquote>
1729 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
1730 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
1731 </blockquote></p>
1732
1733 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
1734 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
1735 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
1736 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
1737 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
1738 video.  AMR is
1739 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
1740 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
1741 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
1742 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
1743 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
1744 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
1745 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
1746
1747 <p>I know why I prefer
1748 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
1749 standards</a> also for video.</p>
1750
1751       </div>
1752       <div class="tags">
1753
1754
1755         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>.
1756
1757
1758       </div>
1759     </div>
1760     <div class="padding"></div>
1761
1762     <div class="entry">
1763       <div class="title">
1764         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
1765       </div>
1766       <div class="date">
1767         19th April 2012
1768       </div>
1769       <div class="body">
1770         <p>Here in Norway, the
1771 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
1772 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
1773 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
1774 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
1775 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
1776 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
1777 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
1778 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
1779 on the same level.</p>
1780
1781 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
1782 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
1783 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
1784 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
1785 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
1786 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
1787 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
1788 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
1789 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
1790 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
1791 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
1792 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
1793 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
1794 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
1795 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
1796 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
1797 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
1798 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
1799
1800 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
1801 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
1802 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
1803 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
1804 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
1805 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
1806 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
1807 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
1808
1809 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
1810 from Simon Phipps
1811 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
1812 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
1813
1814 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
1815 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
1816 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
1817 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
1818 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
1819 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
1820 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
1821 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
1822 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
1823
1824       </div>
1825       <div class="tags">
1826
1827
1828         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>.
1829
1830
1831       </div>
1832     </div>
1833     <div class="padding"></div>
1834
1835     <div class="entry">
1836       <div class="title">
1837         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
1838       </div>
1839       <div class="date">
1840         15th April 2012
1841       </div>
1842       <div class="body">
1843         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
1844 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
1845 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
1846 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
1847 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
1848 up in the recently released
1849 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
1850 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
1851
1852 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1853
1854 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
1855 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
1856 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
1857 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
1858 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
1859 information technology and science/technology.</p>
1860
1861 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1862 project?</strong></p>
1863
1864 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
1865 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
1866 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
1867 contributing.</p>
1868
1869 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1870 Edu?</strong></p>
1871
1872 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
1873 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
1874 Debian Project!</p>
1875
1876 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1877 Edu?</strong></p>
1878
1879 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
1880 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
1881 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
1882 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
1883 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
1884 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
1885 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
1886
1887 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
1888 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
1889
1890 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1891
1892 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
1893 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
1894 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
1895 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
1896
1897 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1898 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1899
1900 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
1901 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
1902 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
1903 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
1904 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
1905 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
1906 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
1907
1908 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
1909 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
1910 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
1911 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
1912 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
1913 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
1914 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
1915 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
1916
1917       </div>
1918       <div class="tags">
1919
1920
1921         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1922
1923
1924       </div>
1925     </div>
1926     <div class="padding"></div>
1927
1928     <div class="entry">
1929       <div class="title">
1930         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
1931       </div>
1932       <div class="date">
1933          8th April 2012
1934       </div>
1935       <div class="body">
1936         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
1937 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
1938 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
1939 contributor to the
1940 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
1941 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
1942
1943 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1944
1945 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
1946 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
1947
1948 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1949 project?</strong></p>
1950
1951 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
1952 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
1953 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
1954 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
1955 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
1956 "localisation".</p>
1957
1958 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1959 Edu?</strong></p>
1960
1961 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1962 Edu?</strong></p>
1963
1964 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
1965 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
1966 education system.</p>
1967
1968 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
1969 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
1970 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
1971 money on the latest hardware.</p>
1972
1973 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1974
1975 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
1976 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
1977 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
1978
1979 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1980 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1981
1982 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
1983 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
1984 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
1985
1986       </div>
1987       <div class="tags">
1988
1989
1990         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1991
1992
1993       </div>
1994     </div>
1995     <div class="padding"></div>
1996
1997     <div class="entry">
1998       <div class="title">
1999         <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>
2000       </div>
2001       <div class="date">
2002          6th April 2012
2003       </div>
2004       <div class="body">
2005         <p>Recently I have spent time with
2006 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
2007 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
2008 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
2009 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
2010 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
2011 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
2012 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
2013 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
2014
2015 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
2016 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
2017 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
2018 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
2019 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
2020 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
2021 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
2022 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
2023
2024 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
2025 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
2026 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
2027 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
2028 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
2029 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
2030 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
2031 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
2032
2033 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
2034 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
2035 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
2036 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
2037 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
2038 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
2039 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
2040 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
2041 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
2042 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
2043
2044 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
2045 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
2046 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
2047 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
2048
2049 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
2050 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
2051
2052       </div>
2053       <div class="tags">
2054
2055
2056         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2057
2058
2059       </div>
2060     </div>
2061     <div class="padding"></div>
2062
2063     <div class="entry">
2064       <div class="title">
2065         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
2066       </div>
2067       <div class="date">
2068          5th April 2012
2069       </div>
2070       <div class="body">
2071         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
2072 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
2073 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
2074 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
2075 for schools.  Check out his article
2076 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
2077 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
2078
2079       </div>
2080       <div class="tags">
2081
2082
2083         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2084
2085
2086       </div>
2087     </div>
2088     <div class="padding"></div>
2089
2090     <div class="entry">
2091       <div class="title">
2092         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
2093       </div>
2094       <div class="date">
2095          1st April 2012
2096       </div>
2097       <div class="body">
2098         <p>Germany is a core area for the
2099 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
2100 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
2101 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
2102
2103 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2104
2105 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
2106 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
2107 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
2108 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
2109 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
2110 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
2111 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
2112 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
2113
2114 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
2115 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
2116 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
2117 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
2118 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
2119 the end of April this year.</p>
2120
2121 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2122 project?</strong></p>
2123
2124 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
2125 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
2126 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
2127 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
2128 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
2129 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
2130 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
2131 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
2132 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
2133 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
2134 Skolelinux.</p>
2135
2136 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
2137 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
2138 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
2139 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
2140 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
2141 the admin teachers.</p>
2142
2143 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2144 Edu?</strong></p>
2145
2146 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
2147 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
2148 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
2149
2150 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
2151 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
2152 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
2153 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
2154 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
2155
2156 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2157 Edu?</strong></p>
2158
2159 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
2160
2161 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2162
2163 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
2164 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
2165 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
2166 LibreOffice.</p>
2167
2168 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2169 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2170
2171 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
2172 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
2173 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
2174
2175       </div>
2176       <div class="tags">
2177
2178
2179         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
2180
2181
2182       </div>
2183     </div>
2184     <div class="padding"></div>
2185
2186     <div class="entry">
2187       <div class="title">
2188         <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>
2189       </div>
2190       <div class="date">
2191         25th March 2012
2192       </div>
2193       <div class="body">
2194         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
2195
2196 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
2197 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
2198 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
2199 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
2200 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
2201 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
2202 and download as a
2203 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
2204 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
2205
2206 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
2207   <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"' />
2208     <p>Download video as
2209       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
2210 </video></p>
2211
2212       </div>
2213       <div class="tags">
2214
2215
2216         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2217
2218
2219       </div>
2220     </div>
2221     <div class="padding"></div>
2222
2223     <div class="entry">
2224       <div class="title">
2225         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
2226       </div>
2227       <div class="date">
2228         19th March 2012
2229       </div>
2230       <div class="body">
2231         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
2232 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
2233 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
2234 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
2235 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
2236
2237 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2238
2239 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
2240 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
2241 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
2242 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
2243 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
2244 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
2245 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
2246 installations.</p>
2247
2248 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2249 project?</strong></p>
2250
2251 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
2252 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
2253 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
2254 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
2255 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
2256 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
2257 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
2258 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
2259 these things we decided to try it.</p>
2260
2261 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2262 Edu?</strong></p>
2263
2264 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
2265 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
2266 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
2267 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
2268 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
2269 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
2270 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
2271 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
2272
2273 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2274 Edu?</strong></p>
2275
2276 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
2277 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
2278 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
2279 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
2280 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
2281
2282 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2283
2284 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
2285 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
2286 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
2287 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
2288 that counts...)</p>
2289
2290 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2291 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2292
2293 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
2294 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
2295 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
2296 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
2297 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
2298 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
2299 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
2300 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
2301 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
2302 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
2303 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
2304
2305 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
2306 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
2307 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
2308
2309       </div>
2310       <div class="tags">
2311
2312
2313         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
2314
2315
2316       </div>
2317     </div>
2318     <div class="padding"></div>
2319
2320     <div class="entry">
2321       <div class="title">
2322         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
2323       </div>
2324       <div class="date">
2325         16th March 2012
2326       </div>
2327       <div class="body">
2328         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
2329 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
2330 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
2331 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
2332
2333 <ol>
2334
2335 <li>The documentation is written in a
2336 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
2337 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
2338 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
2339 docbook XML.</li>
2340
2341 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
2342 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
2343 with the translated text.</li>
2344
2345 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
2346 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
2347 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
2348 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
2349 images.</li>
2350
2351 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
2352 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
2353
2354 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
2355 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
2356
2357 </ol>
2358
2359 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
2360 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
2361 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
2362 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
2363 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
2364
2365 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
2366 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
2367 package</a>.</p>
2368
2369       </div>
2370       <div class="tags">
2371
2372
2373         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2374
2375
2376       </div>
2377     </div>
2378     <div class="padding"></div>
2379
2380     <div class="entry">
2381       <div class="title">
2382         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
2383       </div>
2384       <div class="date">
2385         11th March 2012
2386       </div>
2387       <div class="body">
2388         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
2389 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
2390 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
2391 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
2392 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
2393 you have not done so already.</p>
2394
2395 <p>I plan to present the new version at
2396 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
2397 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
2398 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
2399
2400       </div>
2401       <div class="tags">
2402
2403
2404         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2405
2406
2407       </div>
2408     </div>
2409     <div class="padding"></div>
2410
2411     <div class="entry">
2412       <div class="title">
2413         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
2414       </div>
2415       <div class="date">
2416          9th March 2012
2417       </div>
2418       <div class="body">
2419         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
2420 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
2421 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2422 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
2423 more international audience.</p>
2424
2425 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
2426 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
2427 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
2428 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
2429 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
2430 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
2431 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
2432
2433
2434 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2435
2436 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
2437 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
2438 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
2439 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
2440 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
2441 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
2442 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
2443 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
2444 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
2445 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
2446 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
2447
2448 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2449 project?</strong></p>
2450
2451 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
2452 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
2453 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
2454 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
2455 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
2456 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
2457 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
2458 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
2459 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
2460 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
2461 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
2462 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
2463 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
2464
2465 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2466 Edu?</strong></p>
2467
2468 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
2469 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
2470 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
2471 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
2472 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
2473 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
2474 Japan.</p>
2475
2476 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2477 Edu?</strong></p>
2478
2479 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
2480 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
2481 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
2482 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
2483 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
2484 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
2485 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
2486 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
2487 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
2488 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
2489 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
2490 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
2491 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
2492 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
2493 help.</p>
2494
2495 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2496
2497 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
2498 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
2499 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
2500 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
2501 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
2502 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
2503 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
2504 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
2505 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
2506 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
2507 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
2508
2509 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2510 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2511
2512 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
2513 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
2514 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
2515 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
2516 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
2517 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
2518 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
2519 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
2520 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
2521 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
2522 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
2523 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
2524
2525       </div>
2526       <div class="tags">
2527
2528
2529         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
2530
2531
2532       </div>
2533     </div>
2534     <div class="padding"></div>
2535
2536     <div class="entry">
2537       <div class="title">
2538         <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>
2539       </div>
2540       <div class="date">
2541          7th March 2012
2542       </div>
2543       <div class="body">
2544         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
2545
2546 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
2547 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
2548 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
2549 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
2550 download as a
2551 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
2552 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
2553
2554 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
2555   <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"' />
2556     <p>Download video as
2557       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
2558 </video></p>
2559
2560       </div>
2561       <div class="tags">
2562
2563
2564         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2565
2566
2567       </div>
2568     </div>
2569     <div class="padding"></div>
2570
2571     <div class="entry">
2572       <div class="title">
2573         <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>
2574       </div>
2575       <div class="date">
2576          4th March 2012
2577       </div>
2578       <div class="body">
2579         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
2580 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2581 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
2582 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
2583 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
2584 need a software solution for your school.</p>
2585
2586       </div>
2587       <div class="tags">
2588
2589
2590         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2591
2592
2593       </div>
2594     </div>
2595     <div class="padding"></div>
2596
2597     <div class="entry">
2598       <div class="title">
2599         <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>
2600       </div>
2601       <div class="date">
2602          3rd March 2012
2603       </div>
2604       <div class="body">
2605         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
2606 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
2607 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
2608 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
2609 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
2610 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
2611 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
2612 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
2613 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
2614 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
2615 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
2616 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
2617 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
2618 year...</p>
2619
2620 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
2621 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
2622 name,
2623 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
2624 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
2625 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
2626 mean). I've been following
2627 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
2628 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
2629 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
2630 Check it out. :)</p>
2631
2632       </div>
2633       <div class="tags">
2634
2635
2636         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
2637
2638
2639       </div>
2640     </div>
2641     <div class="padding"></div>
2642
2643     <div class="entry">
2644       <div class="title">
2645         <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>
2646       </div>
2647       <div class="date">
2648         27th February 2012
2649       </div>
2650       <div class="body">
2651         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
2652 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2653 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
2654 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
2655 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
2656 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
2657 need a software solution for your school.</p>
2658
2659       </div>
2660       <div class="tags">
2661
2662
2663         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2664
2665
2666       </div>
2667     </div>
2668     <div class="padding"></div>
2669
2670     <div class="entry">
2671       <div class="title">
2672         <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>
2673       </div>
2674       <div class="date">
2675         19th February 2012
2676       </div>
2677       <div class="body">
2678         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
2679 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
2680 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
2681 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
2682 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
2683 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
2684 solution for your school.</p>
2685
2686       </div>
2687       <div class="tags">
2688
2689
2690         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2691
2692
2693       </div>
2694     </div>
2695     <div class="padding"></div>
2696
2697     <div class="entry">
2698       <div class="title">
2699         <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>
2700       </div>
2701       <div class="date">
2702         14th February 2012
2703       </div>
2704       <div class="body">
2705         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
2706 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
2707 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
2708 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
2709 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
2710 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
2711 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
2712 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
2713 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
2714
2715 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
2716 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
2717 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
2718 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
2719 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
2720
2721 <blockquote><pre>
2722 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
2723 do
2724     printf "Failed disk $d: "
2725     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
2726 done
2727 </blockquote></pre>
2728
2729 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
2730 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
2731
2732 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
2733
2734 <blockquote><pre>
2735 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
2736 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
2737 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
2738 </blockquote></pre>
2739
2740 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
2741 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
2742 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
2743 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
2744 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
2745 mounted inside my box.</p>
2746
2747 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
2748 Software RAID in the
2749 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
2750 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
2751 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
2752 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
2753 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
2754 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
2755
2756       </div>
2757       <div class="tags">
2758
2759
2760         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>.
2761
2762
2763       </div>
2764     </div>
2765     <div class="padding"></div>
2766
2767     <div class="entry">
2768       <div class="title">
2769         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
2770       </div>
2771       <div class="date">
2772         13th February 2012
2773       </div>
2774       <div class="body">
2775         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
2776 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
2777 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
2778 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
2779 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
2780 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
2781 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
2782 change the global proxy setting by editing
2783 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
2784 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
2785
2786 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
2787 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
2788 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
2789
2790 <blockquote><pre>
2791 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
2792 {
2793    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
2794        isPlainHostName(host) ||
2795        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
2796       return "DIRECT";
2797    else
2798       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
2799 }
2800 </pre></blockquote>
2801
2802 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
2803
2804 <blockquote><pre>
2805 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
2806 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
2807 </pre></blockquote>
2808
2809 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
2810 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
2811 would be used for
2812 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
2813 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
2814 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
2815 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
2816 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
2817 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
2818 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
2819 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
2820 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
2821 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
2822
2823 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
2824 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
2825 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
2826 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
2827 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
2828 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
2829
2830 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
2831 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
2832 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
2833 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
2834 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
2835 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
2836 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
2837 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
2838 the network setup changes.</p>
2839
2840 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
2841 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
2842 draft</a> and a
2843 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
2844 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
2845
2846       </div>
2847       <div class="tags">
2848
2849
2850         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2851
2852
2853       </div>
2854     </div>
2855     <div class="padding"></div>
2856
2857     <div class="entry">
2858       <div class="title">
2859         <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>
2860       </div>
2861       <div class="date">
2862          5th February 2012
2863       </div>
2864       <div class="body">
2865         <p>Since the Lenny version of
2866 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
2867 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
2868 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
2869 in the morning.  This is done using the
2870 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
2871
2872 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
2873 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
2874 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
2875 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
2876 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
2877 the
2878 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
2879 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
2880 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
2881 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
2882 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
2883
2884 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
2885 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
2886 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
2887 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
2888 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
2889 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
2890 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
2891
2892 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
2893 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
2894 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
2895 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
2896 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
2897
2898       </div>
2899       <div class="tags">
2900
2901
2902         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2903
2904
2905       </div>
2906     </div>
2907     <div class="padding"></div>
2908
2909     <div class="entry">
2910       <div class="title">
2911         <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>
2912       </div>
2913       <div class="date">
2914          4th February 2012
2915       </div>
2916       <div class="body">
2917         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
2918 publish the third beta version of
2919 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
2920 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
2921 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
2922 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
2923 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
2924 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
2925 on the project announcement list.</p>
2926
2927 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
2928 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
2929
2930 <ul>
2931
2932 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
2933   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
2934   the installation.</li>
2935
2936 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
2937   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
2938
2939 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
2940   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
2941   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
2942
2943 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
2944   for the local system administrator is created during installation
2945   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
2946   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
2947   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
2948   up to date on the system.</li>
2949
2950 </ul>
2951
2952 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
2953 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
2954 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
2955 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
2956
2957 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
2958 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
2959 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
2960 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
2961 will see you there?</p>
2962
2963       </div>
2964       <div class="tags">
2965
2966
2967         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2968
2969
2970       </div>
2971     </div>
2972     <div class="padding"></div>
2973
2974     <div class="entry">
2975       <div class="title">
2976         <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>
2977       </div>
2978       <div class="date">
2979         27th January 2012
2980       </div>
2981       <div class="body">
2982         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
2983 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
2984 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
2985 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
2986 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
2987 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
2988 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
2989
2990 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
2991 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
2992 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
2993 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
2994 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
2995 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
2996 not taken care of by this.</p>
2997
2998 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
2999 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
3000 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
3001 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
3002 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
3003 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
3004 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
3005 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
3006 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
3007 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
3008 firmware packages.</p>
3009
3010 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
3011 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
3012 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
3013 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
3014 initrd with extra firmware, the
3015 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
3016 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
3017 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
3018
3019 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
3020 network cards working.  For this,
3021 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
3022 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
3023 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
3024
3025 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
3026 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
3027 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
3028
3029 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
3030 try.</p>
3031
3032       </div>
3033       <div class="tags">
3034
3035
3036         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3037
3038
3039       </div>
3040     </div>
3041     <div class="padding"></div>
3042
3043     <div class="entry">
3044       <div class="title">
3045         <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>
3046       </div>
3047       <div class="date">
3048         25th January 2012
3049       </div>
3050       <div class="body">
3051         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
3052 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
3053 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
3054 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
3055 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
3056
3057 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
3058 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
3059 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
3060 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
3061 this is done, log on to the central server and run
3062 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
3063 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
3064 will look similar to this:</p>
3065
3066 <p><blockquote><pre>
3067 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
3068 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
3069 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.
3070
3071 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
3072
3073 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3074 enter password: *******
3075 %
3076 </pre></blockquote></p>
3077
3078 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
3079 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
3080 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
3081 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
3082 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
3083 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
3084 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
3085 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
3086 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
3087 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
3088 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
3089 automatically.</p>
3090
3091 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
3092 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
3093
3094 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
3095 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
3096 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
3097
3098       </div>
3099       <div class="tags">
3100
3101
3102         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
3103
3104
3105       </div>
3106     </div>
3107     <div class="padding"></div>
3108
3109     <div class="entry">
3110       <div class="title">
3111         <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>
3112       </div>
3113       <div class="date">
3114         10th January 2012
3115       </div>
3116       <div class="body">
3117         <p>In the Squeeze version of
3118 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
3119 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
3120 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
3121 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
3122 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
3123 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
3124 first time.</p>
3125
3126 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
3127 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
3128 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
3129 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
3130
3131 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
3132 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
3133 new setting.</p>
3134
3135 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
3136 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
3137 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
3138
3139       </div>
3140       <div class="tags">
3141
3142
3143         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
3144
3145
3146       </div>
3147     </div>
3148     <div class="padding"></div>
3149
3150     <div class="entry">
3151       <div class="title">
3152         <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>
3153       </div>
3154       <div class="date">
3155          7th January 2012
3156       </div>
3157       <div class="body">
3158         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
3159 the second beta version of
3160 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
3161 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
3162 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
3163 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
3164 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
3165 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
3166 on the project announcement list.</p>
3167
3168       </div>
3169       <div class="tags">
3170
3171
3172         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3173
3174
3175       </div>
3176     </div>
3177     <div class="padding"></div>
3178
3179     <div class="entry">
3180       <div class="title">
3181         <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>
3182       </div>
3183       <div class="date">
3184          3rd January 2012
3185       </div>
3186       <div class="body">
3187         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
3188 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
3189 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
3190 interesting.</p>
3191
3192 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
3193 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
3194 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
3195 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
3196 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
3197 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
3198 wrap up its tasks.</p>
3199
3200 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
3201 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
3202 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
3203 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
3204 because I was typing.</P>
3205
3206 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
3207 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
3208 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
3209 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
3210 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
3211 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
3212 generate entropy.</p>
3213
3214 <p>The fix is in
3215 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
3216 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
3217 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
3218 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
3219
3220       </div>
3221       <div class="tags">
3222
3223
3224         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3225
3226
3227       </div>
3228     </div>
3229     <div class="padding"></div>
3230
3231     <div class="entry">
3232       <div class="title">
3233         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
3234       </div>
3235       <div class="date">
3236         21st November 2011
3237       </div>
3238       <div class="body">
3239         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
3240 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
3241 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
3242 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
3243 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
3244 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
3245 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
3246 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
3247 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
3248 the tools to do so.</p>
3249
3250 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
3251 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
3252 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
3253 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
3254
3255 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
3256 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
3257 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
3258 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
3259 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
3260 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
3261 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
3262 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
3263
3264 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
3265 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
3266 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
3267
3268 <p><pre>
3269 #!/usr/bin/perl
3270 use strict;
3271 use warnings;
3272 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
3273 BEGIN {
3274     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
3275     my %rhelmodules = (
3276         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
3277         );
3278     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
3279         eval "use $module;";
3280         if ($@) {
3281             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
3282             system("yum install -y $pkg");
3283             eval "use $module;";
3284         }
3285     }
3286 }
3287 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
3288
3289 upgrade_dell();
3290
3291 exit 0;
3292
3293 sub run_firmware_script {
3294     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
3295     unless ($script) {
3296         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
3297         exit 1
3298     }
3299     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
3300
3301     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
3302         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
3303     } else {
3304         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
3305     }
3306 }
3307
3308 sub run_firmware_scripts {
3309     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
3310     # Run firmware packages
3311     for my $dir (@dirs) {
3312         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
3313         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
3314         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
3315             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
3316             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
3317         }
3318         closedir $dh;
3319     }
3320 }
3321
3322 sub download {
3323     my $url = shift;
3324     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
3325     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
3326 }
3327
3328 sub upgrade_dell {
3329     my @dirs;
3330     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
3331     chomp $product;
3332
3333     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
3334
3335         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
3336         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
3337
3338         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
3339             CLEANUP => 1
3340             );
3341         chdir($tmpdir);
3342         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
3343         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
3344         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
3345         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
3346         my $fwopts = "-q";
3347         if (@paths) {
3348             for my $url (@paths) {
3349                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
3350             }
3351             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
3352         } else {
3353             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
3354             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
3355         }
3356         chdir('/');
3357     } else {
3358         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
3359         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
3360     }
3361 }
3362
3363 sub fetch_dell_fw {
3364     my $path = shift;
3365     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
3366     download($url);
3367 }
3368
3369 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
3370 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
3371 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
3372 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
3373     my $filename = shift;
3374
3375     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
3376     chomp $product;
3377     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
3378
3379     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
3380
3381     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
3382     my @paths;
3383     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
3384         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
3385         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
3386         my $oscode;
3387         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
3388             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
3389         } else {
3390             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
3391         }
3392         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
3393         {
3394             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
3395         }
3396     }
3397     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
3398         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
3399
3400         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
3401         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
3402
3403         my $cpath = $component->{path};
3404         for my $path (@paths) {
3405             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
3406                 push(@paths, $cpath);
3407             }
3408         }
3409     }
3410     return @paths;
3411 }
3412 </pre>
3413
3414 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
3415 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
3416 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
3417 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
3418 outdated.</p>
3419
3420       </div>
3421       <div class="tags">
3422
3423
3424         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>.
3425
3426
3427       </div>
3428     </div>
3429     <div class="padding"></div>
3430
3431     <div class="entry">
3432       <div class="title">
3433         <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>
3434       </div>
3435       <div class="date">
3436          7th October 2011
3437       </div>
3438       <div class="body">
3439         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
3440 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
3441 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
3442 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
3443 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
3444 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
3445 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
3446 models.</p>
3447
3448 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
3449 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
3450 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
3451 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
3452
3453 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
3454 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
3455 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
3456 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (abount
3457 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
3458 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
3459 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
3460 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
3461 distributed.</p>
3462
3463 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
3464
3465 <ul>
3466
3467 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
3468   other relevant equipment.</li>
3469
3470 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
3471
3472 </ul>
3473
3474 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
3475 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
3476 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
3477 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
3478 books available.</p>
3479
3480 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
3481 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
3482 libraries. :)</p>
3483
3484       </div>
3485       <div class="tags">
3486
3487
3488         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>.
3489
3490
3491       </div>
3492     </div>
3493     <div class="padding"></div>
3494
3495     <div class="entry">
3496       <div class="title">
3497         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
3498       </div>
3499       <div class="date">
3500         17th September 2011
3501       </div>
3502       <div class="body">
3503         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
3504 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
3505 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
3506 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
3507 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
3508 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
3509 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
3510 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
3511
3512 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
3513
3514 <blockquote><pre>
3515 #!/bin/sh
3516 # apt-get install lsdvd
3517 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
3518 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
3519 </pre></blockquote>
3520
3521 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
3522 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
3523 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
3524 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
3525
3526 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
3527 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
3528 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
3529 back as an ISO.
3530
3531 <blockquote><pre>
3532 #!/bin/sh
3533 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
3534 set -e
3535 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
3536 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
3537 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
3538 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
3539 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
3540 </pre></blockquote>
3541
3542 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
3543
3544 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
3545 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
3546 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
3547 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
3548 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
3549
3550 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
3551 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
3552 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
3553 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
3554 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
3555 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
3556
3557       </div>
3558       <div class="tags">
3559
3560
3561         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>.
3562
3563
3564       </div>
3565     </div>
3566     <div class="padding"></div>
3567
3568     <div class="entry">
3569       <div class="title">
3570         <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>
3571       </div>
3572       <div class="date">
3573          4th August 2011
3574       </div>
3575       <div class="body">
3576         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
3577 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
3578 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
3579 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
3580 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
3581 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
3582 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
3583 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
3584 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
3585
3586 <p><blockquote>
3587 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
3588 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
3589 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
3590 </blockquote></p>
3591
3592 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
3593 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
3594 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
3595 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
3596 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
3597 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
3598 hard to explain.</p>
3599
3600 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
3601 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
3602 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
3603 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
3604 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
3605 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
3606 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
3607 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
3608 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
3609 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
3610 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
3611 mode).</p>
3612
3613 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
3614 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
3615 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
3616 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
3617 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
3618 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
3619 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
3620 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
3621 after visiting single user mode.</p>
3622
3623 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
3624 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
3625 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
3626 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
3627 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
3628 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
3629 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
3630 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
3631
3632 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
3633 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
3634 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
3635
3636       </div>
3637       <div class="tags">
3638
3639
3640         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>.
3641
3642
3643       </div>
3644     </div>
3645     <div class="padding"></div>
3646
3647     <div class="entry">
3648       <div class="title">
3649         <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>
3650       </div>
3651       <div class="date">
3652         30th July 2011
3653       </div>
3654       <div class="body">
3655         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
3656 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
3657 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
3658 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
3659 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
3660 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
3661 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
3662 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
3663 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
3664 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
3665 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
3666 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
3667 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
3668
3669 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
3670 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
3671 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
3672 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
3673 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
3674 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
3675 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
3676 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
3677 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
3678
3679 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
3680 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
3681 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
3682 is presented.</p>
3683
3684 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
3685 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
3686 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
3687 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
3688 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
3689 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
3690 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
3691 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
3692 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
3693 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
3694 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
3695 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
3696 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
3697 find time to push this forward.</p>
3698
3699       </div>
3700       <div class="tags">
3701
3702
3703         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>.
3704
3705
3706       </div>
3707     </div>
3708     <div class="padding"></div>
3709
3710     <div class="entry">
3711       <div class="title">
3712         <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>
3713       </div>
3714       <div class="date">
3715         29th July 2011
3716       </div>
3717       <div class="body">
3718         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
3719 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
3720 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
3721 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
3722 issues.</p>
3723
3724 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
3725 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
3726 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
3727
3728 <ol>
3729
3730 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
3731 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
3732 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
3733 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
3734 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
3735 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
3736 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
3737 Debian.</li>
3738
3739 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
3740 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
3741 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
3742 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
3743 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
3744 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
3745 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
3746 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
3747 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
3748 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
3749 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
3750 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
3751 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
3752
3753 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
3754 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
3755 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
3756 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
3757 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
3758 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
3759 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
3760 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
3761 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
3762 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
3763
3764 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
3765 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
3766 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
3767 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
3768 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
3769 latter behaviour.</li>
3770
3771 </ol>
3772
3773 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
3774 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
3775 it do not matter much.</p>
3776
3777 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
3778 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
3779 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
3780
3781       </div>
3782       <div class="tags">
3783
3784
3785         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>.
3786
3787
3788       </div>
3789     </div>
3790     <div class="padding"></div>
3791
3792     <div class="entry">
3793       <div class="title">
3794         <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>
3795       </div>
3796       <div class="date">
3797         26th July 2011
3798       </div>
3799       <div class="body">
3800         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
3801 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
3802 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
3803 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
3804 security support for a few years.</p>
3805
3806 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
3807 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
3808 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
3809 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
3810 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
3811 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
3812 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
3813 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
3814 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
3815 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
3816 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
3817 easier in the future.</p>
3818
3819 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
3820 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
3821 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
3822 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
3823 do not have time for.</p>
3824
3825       </div>
3826       <div class="tags">
3827
3828
3829         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>.
3830
3831
3832       </div>
3833     </div>
3834     <div class="padding"></div>
3835
3836     <div class="entry">
3837       <div class="title">
3838         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
3839       </div>
3840       <div class="date">
3841         20th June 2011
3842       </div>
3843       <div class="body">
3844         <p>Reading
3845 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
3846 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
3847 parts of the
3848 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
3849 and
3850 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
3851 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
3852 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
3853 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
3854
3855       </div>
3856       <div class="tags">
3857
3858
3859         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>.
3860
3861
3862       </div>
3863     </div>
3864     <div class="padding"></div>
3865
3866     <div class="entry">
3867       <div class="title">
3868         <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>
3869       </div>
3870       <div class="date">
3871         30th April 2011
3872       </div>
3873       <div class="body">
3874         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
3875 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
3876 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
3877 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
3878 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
3879 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
3880 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
3881 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
3882 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
3883 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
3884
3885 <p>Where is it?  Visit
3886 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
3887 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
3888 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
3889 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
3890
3891       </div>
3892       <div class="tags">
3893
3894
3895         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>.
3896
3897
3898       </div>
3899     </div>
3900     <div class="padding"></div>
3901
3902     <div class="entry">
3903       <div class="title">
3904         <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>
3905       </div>
3906       <div class="date">
3907         29th April 2011
3908       </div>
3909       <div class="body">
3910         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
3911 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
3912 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
3913 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
3914 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
3915 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
3916 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
3917 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
3918 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
3919 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
3920 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
3921 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
3922 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
3923
3924 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
3925 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
3926 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
3927 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
3928 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
3929 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
3930 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
3931 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
3932 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
3933 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
3934 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
3935 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
3936 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
3937
3938 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
3939 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
3940 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
3941 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
3942 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
3943 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
3944 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
3945 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
3946 it.</p>
3947
3948 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
3949 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
3950 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
3951 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
3952 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
3953 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
3954 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
3955
3956 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
3957 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
3958 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
3959 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
3960 and range= options.</p>
3961
3962 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
3963 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
3964 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
3965 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
3966 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
3967 to best handle this.  I've noticed
3968 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
3969 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
3970 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
3971 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
3972
3973 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
3974 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
3975 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
3976 discussions instead of only
3977 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
3978 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
3979 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
3980 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
3981 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
3982 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
3983
3984       </div>
3985       <div class="tags">
3986
3987
3988         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>.
3989
3990
3991       </div>
3992     </div>
3993     <div class="padding"></div>
3994
3995     <div class="entry">
3996       <div class="title">
3997         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
3998       </div>
3999       <div class="date">
4000          6th April 2011
4001       </div>
4002       <div class="body">
4003         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
4004 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
4005 A few days ago the project
4006 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
4007 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
4008 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
4009 into Gnash.</p>
4010
4011       </div>
4012       <div class="tags">
4013
4014
4015         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>.
4016
4017
4018       </div>
4019     </div>
4020     <div class="padding"></div>
4021
4022     <div class="entry">
4023       <div class="title">
4024         <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>
4025       </div>
4026       <div class="date">
4027          3rd April 2011
4028       </div>
4029       <div class="body">
4030         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
4031 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
4032 update in English.</p>
4033
4034 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
4035 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
4036 of the British service
4037 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
4038 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
4039 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
4040 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
4041 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
4042 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
4043 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
4044 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
4045 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
4046 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
4047 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
4048 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
4049 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
4050
4051 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
4052 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
4053 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
4054 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
4055 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
4056 public infrastructure.</p>
4057
4058 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
4059 such service?</p>
4060
4061       </div>
4062       <div class="tags">
4063
4064
4065         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
4066
4067
4068       </div>
4069     </div>
4070     <div class="padding"></div>
4071
4072     <div class="entry">
4073       <div class="title">
4074         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html">Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</a>
4075       </div>
4076       <div class="date">
4077         28th January 2011
4078       </div>
4079       <div class="body">
4080         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
4081 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
4082 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
4083 available on the Internet, and check our locally
4084 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
4085 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
4086 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
4087 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
4088 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
4089 out which security holes were present in our free software
4090 collection.</p>
4091
4092 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
4093 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
4094 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
4095 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
4096 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
4097 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
4098 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
4099 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
4100 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
4101 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
4102 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
4103 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
4104 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
4105 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
4106 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
4107 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
4108
4109 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
4110 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
4111 check out, one could look up
4112 <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
4113 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
4114 The most recent one is
4115 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
4116 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
4117 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
4118
4119 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
4120 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
4121 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
4122 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
4123 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
4124 security issues out.</p>
4125
4126 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
4127 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
4128 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
4129 RHEL is providing
4130 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
4131 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
4132 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
4133
4134 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
4135 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
4136 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
4137 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
4138 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
4139 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
4140 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
4141 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
4142 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
4143 established soon.</p>
4144
4145 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
4146 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
4147 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
4148 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
4149 for their packages.</p>
4150
4151       </div>
4152       <div class="tags">
4153
4154
4155         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>.
4156
4157
4158       </div>
4159     </div>
4160     <div class="padding"></div>
4161
4162     <div class="entry">
4163       <div class="title">
4164         <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>
4165       </div>
4166       <div class="date">
4167         23rd January 2011
4168       </div>
4169       <div class="body">
4170         <p>In the
4171 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
4172 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
4173 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
4174 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
4175 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
4176 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
4177 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
4178 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
4179 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
4180 one of my machines like this:</p>
4181
4182 <pre>
4183 loaded modules:
4184 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
4185 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
4186 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
4187 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
4188 10de:03ec pata_amd
4189 10de:03f6 sata_nv
4190 1022:1103 k8temp
4191 109e:036e bttv
4192 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
4193 11ab:4364 sky2
4194 </pre>
4195
4196 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
4197 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
4198
4199 <pre>
4200 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
4201     echo loaded pci modules:
4202     (
4203         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
4204         for address in * ; do
4205             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
4206                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4207                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
4208                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
4209                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
4210                     echo "$id $module"
4211                 fi
4212             fi
4213         done
4214     )
4215     echo
4216 fi
4217 </pre>
4218
4219 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
4220 mappings:</p>
4221
4222 <pre>
4223 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
4224     echo loaded usb modules:
4225     (
4226         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
4227         for address in * ; do
4228             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
4229                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4230                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
4231                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
4232                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
4233                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
4234                         echo "$id $module"
4235                     fi
4236                 fi
4237             fi
4238         done
4239     )
4240     echo
4241 fi
4242 </pre>
4243
4244 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
4245 well.</p>
4246
4247       </div>
4248       <div class="tags">
4249
4250
4251         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>.
4252
4253
4254       </div>
4255     </div>
4256     <div class="padding"></div>
4257
4258     <div class="entry">
4259       <div class="title">
4260         <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>
4261       </div>
4262       <div class="date">
4263         16th January 2011
4264       </div>
4265       <div class="body">
4266         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
4267 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
4268 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
4269 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
4270 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
4271 the Wikipedia article on
4272 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
4273 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
4274 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
4275 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
4276 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
4277 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
4278 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
4279 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
4280 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
4281 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
4282 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
4283 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
4284
4285 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
4286 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
4287 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
4288 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
4289 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
4290 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
4291 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
4292 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
4293 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
4294 from last week</a>.</p>
4295
4296 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
4297 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
4298 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
4299 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
4300 was without royalties and license terms, check out
4301 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
4302 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
4303
4304 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
4305 available from
4306 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
4307 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
4308 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
4309
4310 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
4311 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
4312 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
4313 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
4314
4315       </div>
4316       <div class="tags">
4317
4318
4319         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>.
4320
4321
4322       </div>
4323     </div>
4324     <div class="padding"></div>
4325
4326     <div class="entry">
4327       <div class="title">
4328         <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>
4329       </div>
4330       <div class="date">
4331         12th January 2011
4332       </div>
4333       <div class="body">
4334         <p>Today I discovered
4335 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
4336 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
4337 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
4338 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
4339 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
4340 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
4341 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
4342 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
4343 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
4344 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
4345 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
4346 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
4347 on the Google announcement is available from
4348 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
4349 A good read. :)</p>
4350
4351 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
4352 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
4353 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
4354 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
4355 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
4356 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
4357 browsers support H.264, and others support
4358 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
4359 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
4360 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
4361 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
4362 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
4363 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
4364 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
4365 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
4366
4367 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
4368 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
4369 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
4370 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
4371 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
4372 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
4373 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
4374
4375 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
4376 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
4377 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
4378 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
4379 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
4380 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
4381 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
4382
4383 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
4384 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
4385 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
4386 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
4387 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
4388 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
4389 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
4390
4391 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
4392 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
4393 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
4394 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
4395 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
4396 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
4397 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
4398 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
4399 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
4400 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
4401 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
4402 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
4403 I guess time will tell.</p>
4404
4405 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
4406 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
4407 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
4408
4409       </div>
4410       <div class="tags">
4411
4412
4413         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>.
4414
4415
4416       </div>
4417     </div>
4418     <div class="padding"></div>
4419
4420     <div class="entry">
4421       <div class="title">
4422         <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>
4423       </div>
4424       <div class="date">
4425         30th December 2010
4426       </div>
4427       <div class="body">
4428         <p>After trying to
4429 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
4430 Ogg Theora</a> to
4431 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
4432 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
4433 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
4434 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
4435 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
4436 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
4437 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
4438
4439 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
4440 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
4441 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
4442 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
4443 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
4444 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
4445 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
4446
4447 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
4448 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
4449
4450       </div>
4451       <div class="tags">
4452
4453
4454         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>.
4455
4456
4457       </div>
4458     </div>
4459     <div class="padding"></div>
4460
4461     <div class="entry">
4462       <div class="title">
4463         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
4464       </div>
4465       <div class="date">
4466         27th December 2010
4467       </div>
4468       <div class="body">
4469         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
4470 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
4471 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
4472 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
4473 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
4474 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
4475 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
4476 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
4477
4478 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
4479 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
4480 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
4481 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
4482 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
4483 page</a>.</p>
4484
4485 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
4486 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
4487 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
4488 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
4489 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
4490 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
4491 specification on equal terms.</p>
4492
4493 <blockquote>
4494
4495 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
4496 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
4497 open standard:</p>
4498
4499 <ul>
4500
4501 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
4502 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
4503 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
4504 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
4505
4506 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
4507 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
4508 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
4509 nominal fee.</li>
4510
4511 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
4512 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
4513 free basis.</li>
4514
4515 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
4516
4517 </ul>
4518 </blockquote>
4519
4520 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
4521 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
4522 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
4523 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
4524 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
4525 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
4526 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
4527
4528 <blockquote>
4529
4530 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
4531
4532 <ol>
4533
4534 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
4535 tilgængelig.</li>
4536
4537 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
4538 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
4539
4540 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
4541 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
4542
4543 </ol>
4544
4545 </blockquote>
4546
4547 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
4548 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
4549
4550 <blockquote>
4551
4552 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
4553
4554 <ol>
4555
4556 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
4557 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
4558
4559 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
4560 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
4561 Standard themselves;</li>
4562
4563 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
4564 any party or in any business model;</li>
4565
4566 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
4567 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
4568 parties;</li>
4569
4570 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
4571 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
4572 parties.</li>
4573
4574 </ol>
4575
4576 </blockquote>
4577
4578 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
4579 its
4580 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
4581 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
4582
4583 <blockquote>
4584 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
4585
4586 <ul>
4587
4588 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
4589   democratic:
4590
4591          <ul>
4592
4593          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
4594             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
4595             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
4596             and managed.</li>
4597
4598          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
4599             method, can be changed through input from all
4600             participants.</li>
4601
4602          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
4603             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
4604
4605          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
4606             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
4607
4608          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
4609             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
4610             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
4611
4612          </ul>
4613
4614 </li>
4615
4616 </ul>
4617
4618 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
4619 <ul>
4620
4621 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
4622   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
4623   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
4624   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
4625   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
4626
4627 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
4628   a technical or economic barriers</li>
4629
4630 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
4631   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
4632   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
4633   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
4634   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
4635   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
4636   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
4637   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
4638   intended to function.</li>
4639
4640 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
4641   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
4642   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
4643
4644 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
4645   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
4646   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
4647   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
4648   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
4649   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
4650   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
4651   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
4652
4653       <ul>
4654
4655       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
4656         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
4657         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
4658
4659       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
4660         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
4661         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
4662         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
4663
4664       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
4665         licensor</li>
4666
4667       </ul>
4668 </li>
4669
4670 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
4671   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
4672   or restricted licensing terms</li>
4673
4674 </ul>
4675
4676 </blockquote>
4677
4678 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
4679 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
4680 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
4681 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
4682 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
4683 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
4684 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
4685 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
4686 Standards.</p>
4687
4688       </div>
4689       <div class="tags">
4690
4691
4692         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>.
4693
4694
4695       </div>
4696     </div>
4697     <div class="padding"></div>
4698
4699     <div class="entry">
4700       <div class="title">
4701         <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>
4702       </div>
4703       <div class="date">
4704         25th December 2010
4705       </div>
4706       <div class="body">
4707         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
4708 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
4709
4710 <blockquote>
4711
4712 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
4713 as follows:</p>
4714
4715 <ol>
4716
4717 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
4718 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
4719 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
4720
4721 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
4722 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
4723 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
4724 parties.</li>
4725
4726 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
4727 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
4728 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
4729
4730 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
4731 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
4732
4733 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
4734
4735 </ol>
4736
4737 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
4738 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
4739 products based on the standard.</p>
4740 </blockquote>
4741
4742 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
4743 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
4744 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
4745 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
4746 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
4747 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
4748 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
4749 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
4750
4751 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
4752
4753 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
4754 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
4755 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
4756 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
4757 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
4758 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
4759 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
4760 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
4761 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
4762 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
4763 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
4764 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
4765 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
4766 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
4767
4768 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
4769
4770 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
4771 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
4772 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
4773 documentation indicating this.</p>
4774
4775 <p>According to
4776 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
4777 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
4778 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
4779 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
4780 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
4781 report is correct.</p>
4782
4783 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
4784
4785 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
4786 container format</a> and both the
4787 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
4788 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
4789 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
4790
4791 <blockquote>
4792
4793 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
4794 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
4795 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
4796 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
4797 specification compliance.
4798
4799 </blockquote>
4800
4801 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
4802 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
4803 this is the term:<p>
4804
4805 <blockquote>
4806
4807 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
4808 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
4809 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
4810 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
4811 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
4812 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
4813 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
4814 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
4815 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
4816 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
4817 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
4818 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
4819
4820 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
4821 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
4822 </blockquote>
4823
4824 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
4825 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
4826 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
4827 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
4828 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
4829
4830 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
4831
4832 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
4833 Theora format.
4834 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
4835 and
4836 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
4837 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
4838 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
4839 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
4840 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
4841 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
4842 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
4843 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
4844
4845 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
4846
4847 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
4848
4849 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
4850
4851 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
4852 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
4853 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
4854 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
4855 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
4856 this.</p>
4857
4858 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
4859 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
4860
4861       </div>
4862       <div class="tags">
4863
4864
4865         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>.
4866
4867
4868       </div>
4869     </div>
4870     <div class="padding"></div>
4871
4872     <div class="entry">
4873       <div class="title">
4874         <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>
4875       </div>
4876       <div class="date">
4877         25th December 2010
4878       </div>
4879       <div class="body">
4880         <p>A few days ago
4881 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
4882 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
4883 2.0 of
4884 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
4885 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
4886 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
4887 Nothing very surprising there, given
4888 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
4889 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
4890 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
4891 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
4892 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
4893 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
4894 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
4895 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
4896 standard definition from its content.</p>
4897
4898 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
4899 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
4900 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
4901 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
4902 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
4903 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
4904 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
4905 background information about that story is available in
4906 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
4907 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
4908
4909 <blockquote>
4910 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
4911 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
4912 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
4913
4914 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
4915
4916 <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>
4917
4918 <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>
4919
4920 <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>
4921
4922 <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>
4923
4924 <p>
4925 <ul>
4926 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
4927 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
4928 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
4929 </ul>
4930 </p>
4931
4932 <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>
4933
4934 <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>
4935
4936 <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>
4937
4938 <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>
4939
4940 <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>
4941
4942
4943 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
4944 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
4945 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
4946 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
4947 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
4948 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
4949
4950 </p>
4951
4952 <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>
4953
4954 <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>
4955
4956 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
4957
4958 <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>
4959
4960 <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>
4961
4962 <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>
4963
4964 <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>
4965
4966 <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>
4967
4968 <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>
4969
4970 <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>
4971
4972 <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>
4973
4974 <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>
4975
4976 <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>
4977
4978 <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>
4979
4980 <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>
4981
4982 <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>
4983
4984 <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>
4985
4986 <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>
4987
4988 <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>
4989
4990 <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>
4991
4992 <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>
4993
4994 <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>
4995
4996 <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>
4997
4998 <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>
4999
5000 <p>On security:</p>
5001
5002 <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>
5003
5004 <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>
5005
5006 <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>
5007
5008 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
5009
5010 <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>
5011
5012 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
5013
5014 <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>
5015
5016 <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>
5017
5018 <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>
5019
5020 <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>
5021
5022 <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>
5023
5024 <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>
5025
5026 <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>
5027
5028 <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>
5029
5030 <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>
5031
5032 <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>
5033
5034 <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>
5035
5036 <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>
5037
5038 <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>
5039
5040 <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>
5041
5042 <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>
5043
5044 <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>
5045
5046 <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>
5047
5048 <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>
5049
5050 <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>
5051
5052 <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>
5053
5054 <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>
5055
5056 <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>
5057
5058 <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>
5059
5060 <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>
5061
5062 <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>
5063
5064 <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>
5065
5066 <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>
5067
5068 <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>
5069
5070 <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>
5071
5072 <p>Cordially,<br>
5073 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
5074 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
5075 </blockquote>
5076
5077       </div>
5078       <div class="tags">
5079
5080
5081         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>.
5082
5083
5084       </div>
5085     </div>
5086     <div class="padding"></div>
5087
5088     <div class="entry">
5089       <div class="title">
5090         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
5091       </div>
5092       <div class="date">
5093         25th December 2010
5094       </div>
5095       <div class="body">
5096         <p>Half a year ago I
5097 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
5098 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
5099 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
5100 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
5101
5102 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
5103 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
5104 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
5105 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
5106 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
5107 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
5108 got such a great test tool available.</p>
5109
5110       </div>
5111       <div class="tags">
5112
5113
5114         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>.
5115
5116
5117       </div>
5118     </div>
5119     <div class="padding"></div>
5120
5121     <div class="entry">
5122       <div class="title">
5123         <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>
5124       </div>
5125       <div class="date">
5126         22nd December 2010
5127       </div>
5128       <div class="body">
5129         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
5130 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
5131 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
5132 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
5133 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
5134 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
5135 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
5136 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
5137 university.</p>
5138
5139 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
5140 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
5141 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
5142 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
5143 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
5144 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
5145 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
5146 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
5147
5148 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
5149 I perform on a new model.</p>
5150
5151 <ul>
5152
5153 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
5154 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
5155 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
5156
5157 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
5158 installation, X.org is working.</li>
5159
5160 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
5161 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
5162 reported by the program.</li>
5163
5164 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
5165 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
5166 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
5167 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
5168 normally test this by playing
5169 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
5170 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
5171
5172 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
5173 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5174
5175 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
5176 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5177
5178 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
5179 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
5180
5181 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
5182 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
5183 few.</li>
5184
5185 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
5186 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
5187 notice this.</li>
5188
5189 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
5190 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
5191 resume.</li>
5192
5193 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
5194 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
5195 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
5196 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
5197 not.</li>
5198
5199 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
5200 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
5201 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
5202 existence.</li>
5203
5204 </ul>
5205
5206 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
5207 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
5208 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
5209 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
5210 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
5211 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
5212 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
5213 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
5214
5215       </div>
5216       <div class="tags">
5217
5218
5219         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>.
5220
5221
5222       </div>
5223     </div>
5224     <div class="padding"></div>
5225
5226     <div class="entry">
5227       <div class="title">
5228         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
5229       </div>
5230       <div class="date">
5231         11th December 2010
5232       </div>
5233       <div class="body">
5234         <p>As I continue to explore
5235 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
5236 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
5237 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
5238
5239 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
5240 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
5241 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
5242 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
5243 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
5244 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
5245 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
5246 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
5247 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
5248 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
5249 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
5250 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
5251 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
5252 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
5253 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
5254 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
5255 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
5256 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
5257 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
5258 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
5259
5260 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
5261 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
5262 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
5263 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
5264 If the Skolelinux foundation
5265 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
5266 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
5267 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
5268 Given that it is impossible to know if money can across the border or
5269 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
5270 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
5271 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
5272 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
5273
5274 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
5275 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
5276 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
5277 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
5278 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
5279 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
5280 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
5281 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
5282 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
5283 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
5284 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
5285 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
5286 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
5287 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
5288 currencies.</p>
5289
5290 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
5291 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
5292 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
5293 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
5294 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
5295 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
5296 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
5297 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
5298 BitCoins.  Check out
5299 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
5300 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
5301 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
5302 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
5303 yet.</p>
5304
5305 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
5306 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
5307 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
5308 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
5309 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
5310
5311       </div>
5312       <div class="tags">
5313
5314
5315         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>.
5316
5317
5318       </div>
5319     </div>
5320     <div class="padding"></div>
5321
5322     <div class="entry">
5323       <div class="title">
5324         <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>
5325       </div>
5326       <div class="date">
5327         10th December 2010
5328       </div>
5329       <div class="body">
5330         <p>With this weeks lawless
5331 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
5332 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
5333 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
5334 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
5335 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
5336 A blog post from
5337 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
5338 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
5339 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
5340 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
5341 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
5342 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
5343 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
5344
5345 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
5346 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
5347 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
5348 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
5349 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
5350 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
5351 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
5352 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
5353 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
5354 Debian</a> soon.</p>
5355
5356 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
5357 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
5358 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
5359 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
5360 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
5361 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
5362 you can even get
5363 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
5364 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
5365 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
5366 on the current exchange rates.</p>
5367
5368 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
5369 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
5370 donations to the address
5371 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
5372
5373       </div>
5374       <div class="tags">
5375
5376
5377         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>.
5378
5379
5380       </div>
5381     </div>
5382     <div class="padding"></div>
5383
5384     <div class="entry">
5385       <div class="title">
5386         <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>
5387       </div>
5388       <div class="date">
5389          9th December 2010
5390       </div>
5391       <div class="body">
5392         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
5393 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
5394 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
5395 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
5396 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
5397 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
5398 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
5399 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
5400 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
5401 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
5402 operational.</p>
5403
5404 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
5405 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
5406 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
5407 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
5408 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
5409 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
5410 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
5411
5412       </div>
5413       <div class="tags">
5414
5415
5416         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>.
5417
5418
5419       </div>
5420     </div>
5421     <div class="padding"></div>
5422
5423     <div class="entry">
5424       <div class="title">
5425         <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>
5426       </div>
5427       <div class="date">
5428         29th November 2010
5429       </div>
5430       <div class="body">
5431         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5432 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
5433 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
5434 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
5435 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
5436 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
5437
5438 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
5439 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
5440 will hold its
5441 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
5442 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
5443 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
5444 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
5445 vote this year.</p>
5446
5447       </div>
5448       <div class="tags">
5449
5450
5451         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
5452
5453
5454       </div>
5455     </div>
5456     <div class="padding"></div>
5457
5458     <div class="entry">
5459       <div class="title">
5460         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
5461       </div>
5462       <div class="date">
5463         27th November 2010
5464       </div>
5465       <div class="body">
5466         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
5467 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
5468 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
5469 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
5470 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
5471 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
5472 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
5473 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
5474
5475 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
5476 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5477 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
5478 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
5479 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
5480 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
5481 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
5482 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
5483 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
5484 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
5485 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
5486
5487 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
5488 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
5489 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
5490 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
5491 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
5492 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
5493 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
5494 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
5495 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
5496 what is going on.</p>
5497
5498       </div>
5499       <div class="tags">
5500
5501
5502         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>.
5503
5504
5505       </div>
5506     </div>
5507     <div class="padding"></div>
5508
5509     <div class="entry">
5510       <div class="title">
5511         <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>
5512       </div>
5513       <div class="date">
5514         22nd November 2010
5515       </div>
5516       <div class="body">
5517         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
5518 upgrade testing of the
5519 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
5520 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
5521 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
5522 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
5523
5524 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
5525
5526 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5527
5528 <blockquote><p>
5529   apache2.2-bin
5530   aptdaemon
5531   baobab
5532   binfmt-support
5533   browser-plugin-gnash
5534   cheese-common
5535   cli-common
5536   cups-pk-helper
5537   dmz-cursor-theme
5538   empathy
5539   empathy-common
5540   freedesktop-sound-theme
5541   freeglut3
5542   gconf-defaults-service
5543   gdm-themes
5544   gedit-plugins
5545   geoclue
5546   geoclue-hostip
5547   geoclue-localnet
5548   geoclue-manual
5549   geoclue-yahoo
5550   gnash
5551   gnash-common
5552   gnome
5553   gnome-backgrounds
5554   gnome-cards-data
5555   gnome-codec-install
5556   gnome-core
5557   gnome-desktop-environment
5558   gnome-disk-utility
5559   gnome-screenshot
5560   gnome-search-tool
5561   gnome-session-canberra
5562   gnome-system-log
5563   gnome-themes-extras
5564   gnome-themes-more
5565   gnome-user-share
5566   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5567   gstreamer0.10-tools
5568   gtk2-engines
5569   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5570   gtk2-engines-smooth
5571   hamster-applet
5572   libapache2-mod-dnssd
5573   libapr1
5574   libaprutil1
5575   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
5576   libaprutil1-ldap
5577   libart2.0-cil
5578   libboost-date-time1.42.0
5579   libboost-python1.42.0
5580   libboost-thread1.42.0
5581   libchamplain-0.4-0
5582   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
5583   libcheese-gtk18
5584   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
5585   libcryptui0
5586   libdiscid0
5587   libelf1
5588   libepc-1.0-2
5589   libepc-common
5590   libepc-ui-1.0-2
5591   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5592   libfreerdp0
5593   libgconf2.0-cil
5594   libgdata-common
5595   libgdata7
5596   libgdu-gtk0
5597   libgee2
5598   libgeoclue0
5599   libgexiv2-0
5600   libgif4
5601   libglade2.0-cil
5602   libglib2.0-cil
5603   libgmime2.4-cil
5604   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5605   libgnome2.24-cil
5606   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
5607   libgpod-common
5608   libgpod4
5609   libgtk2.0-cil
5610   libgtkglext1
5611   libgtksourceview2.0-common
5612   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5613   libmono-addins0.2-cil
5614   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
5615   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5616   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
5617   libmono-posix2.0-cil
5618   libmono-security2.0-cil
5619   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5620   libmono-system2.0-cil
5621   libmtp8
5622   libmusicbrainz3-6
5623   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
5624   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
5625   libopal3.6.8
5626   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
5627   libpt2.6.7
5628   libpython2.6
5629   librpm1
5630   librpmio1
5631   libsdl1.2debian
5632   libsrtp0
5633   libssh-4
5634   libtelepathy-farsight0
5635   libtelepathy-glib0
5636   libtidy-0.99-0
5637   media-player-info
5638   mesa-utils
5639   mono-2.0-gac
5640   mono-gac
5641   mono-runtime
5642   nautilus-sendto
5643   nautilus-sendto-empathy
5644   p7zip-full
5645   pkg-config
5646   python-aptdaemon
5647   python-aptdaemon-gtk
5648   python-axiom
5649   python-beautifulsoup
5650   python-bugbuddy
5651   python-clientform
5652   python-coherence
5653   python-configobj
5654   python-crypto
5655   python-cupshelpers
5656   python-elementtree
5657   python-epsilon
5658   python-evolution
5659   python-feedparser
5660   python-gdata
5661   python-gdbm
5662   python-gst0.10
5663   python-gtkglext1
5664   python-gtksourceview2
5665   python-httplib2
5666   python-louie
5667   python-mako
5668   python-markupsafe
5669   python-mechanize
5670   python-nevow
5671   python-notify
5672   python-opengl
5673   python-openssl
5674   python-pam
5675   python-pkg-resources
5676   python-pyasn1
5677   python-pysqlite2
5678   python-rdflib
5679   python-serial
5680   python-tagpy
5681   python-twisted-bin
5682   python-twisted-conch
5683   python-twisted-core
5684   python-twisted-web
5685   python-utidylib
5686   python-webkit
5687   python-xdg
5688   python-zope.interface
5689   remmina
5690   remmina-plugin-data
5691   remmina-plugin-rdp
5692   remmina-plugin-vnc
5693   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5694   rhythmbox-plugins
5695   rpm-common
5696   rpm2cpio
5697   seahorse-plugins
5698   shotwell
5699   software-center
5700   system-config-printer-udev
5701   telepathy-gabble
5702   telepathy-mission-control-5
5703   telepathy-salut
5704   tomboy
5705   totem
5706   totem-coherence
5707   totem-mozilla
5708   totem-plugins
5709   transmission-common
5710   xdg-user-dirs
5711   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
5712   xserver-xephyr
5713 </p></blockquote>
5714
5715 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5716
5717 <blockquote><p>
5718   cheese
5719   ekiga
5720   eog
5721   epiphany-extensions
5722   evolution-exchange
5723   fast-user-switch-applet
5724   file-roller
5725   gcalctool
5726   gconf-editor
5727   gdm
5728   gedit
5729   gedit-common
5730   gnome-games
5731   gnome-games-data
5732   gnome-nettool
5733   gnome-system-tools
5734   gnome-themes
5735   gnuchess
5736   gucharmap
5737   guile-1.8-libs
5738   libavahi-ui0
5739   libdmx1
5740   libgalago3
5741   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
5742   libgtksourceview2.0-0
5743   liblircclient0
5744   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
5745   libspeexdsp1
5746   libsvga1
5747   rhythmbox
5748   seahorse
5749   sound-juicer
5750   system-config-printer
5751   totem-common
5752   transmission-gtk
5753   vinagre
5754   vino
5755 </p></blockquote>
5756
5757 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5758
5759 <blockquote><p>
5760   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5761 </p></blockquote>
5762
5763 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5764
5765 <blockquote><p>
5766 [nothing]
5767 </p></blockquote>
5768
5769 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
5770
5771 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5772
5773 <blockquote><p>
5774   ksmserver
5775 </p></blockquote>
5776
5777 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5778
5779 <blockquote><p>
5780   kwin
5781   network-manager-kde
5782 </p></blockquote>
5783
5784 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5785
5786 <blockquote><p>
5787   arts
5788   dolphin
5789   freespacenotifier
5790   google-gadgets-gst
5791   google-gadgets-xul
5792   kappfinder
5793   kcalc
5794   kcharselect
5795   kde-core
5796   kde-plasma-desktop
5797   kde-standard
5798   kde-window-manager
5799   kdeartwork
5800   kdeartwork-emoticons
5801   kdeartwork-style
5802   kdeartwork-theme-icon
5803   kdebase
5804   kdebase-apps
5805   kdebase-workspace
5806   kdebase-workspace-bin
5807   kdebase-workspace-data
5808   kdeeject
5809   kdelibs
5810   kdeplasma-addons
5811   kdeutils
5812   kdewallpapers
5813   kdf
5814   kfloppy
5815   kgpg
5816   khelpcenter4
5817   kinfocenter
5818   konq-plugins-l10n
5819   konqueror-nsplugins
5820   kscreensaver
5821   kscreensaver-xsavers
5822   ktimer
5823   kwrite
5824   libgle3
5825   libkde4-ruby1.8
5826   libkonq5
5827   libkonq5-templates
5828   libnetpbm10
5829   libplasma-ruby
5830   libplasma-ruby1.8
5831   libqt4-ruby1.8
5832   marble-data
5833   marble-plugins
5834   netpbm
5835   nuvola-icon-theme
5836   plasma-dataengines-workspace
5837   plasma-desktop
5838   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
5839   plasma-runners-addons
5840   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
5841   plasma-scriptengine-python
5842   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
5843   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
5844   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
5845   plasma-scriptengines
5846   plasma-wallpapers-addons
5847   plasma-widget-folderview
5848   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
5849   ruby
5850   sweeper
5851   update-notifier-kde
5852   xscreensaver-data-extra
5853   xscreensaver-gl
5854   xscreensaver-gl-extra
5855   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
5856 </p></blockquote>
5857
5858 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5859
5860 <blockquote><p>
5861   ark
5862   google-gadgets-common
5863   google-gadgets-qt
5864   htdig
5865   kate
5866   kdebase-bin
5867   kdebase-data
5868   kdepasswd
5869   kfind
5870   klipper
5871   konq-plugins
5872   konqueror
5873   ksysguard
5874   ksysguardd
5875   libarchive1
5876   libcln6
5877   libeet1
5878   libeina-svn-06
5879   libggadget-1.0-0b
5880   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
5881   libgps19
5882   libkdecorations4
5883   libkephal4
5884   libkonq4
5885   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
5886   libkscreensaver5
5887   libksgrd4
5888   libksignalplotter4
5889   libkunitconversion4
5890   libkwineffects1a
5891   libmarblewidget4
5892   libntrack-qt4-1
5893   libntrack0
5894   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
5895   libplasmaclock4a
5896   libplasmagenericshell4
5897   libprocesscore4a
5898   libprocessui4a
5899   libqalculate5
5900   libqedje0a
5901   libqtruby4shared2
5902   libqzion0a
5903   libruby1.8
5904   libscim8c2a
5905   libsmokekdecore4-3
5906   libsmokekdeui4-3
5907   libsmokekfile3
5908   libsmokekhtml3
5909   libsmokekio3
5910   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
5911   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
5912   libsmokekparts3
5913   libsmokektexteditor3
5914   libsmokekutils3
5915   libsmokenepomuk3
5916   libsmokephonon3
5917   libsmokeplasma3
5918   libsmokeqtcore4-3
5919   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
5920   libsmokeqtgui4-3
5921   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
5922   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
5923   libsmokeqtscript4-3
5924   libsmokeqtsql4-3
5925   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
5926   libsmokeqttest4-3
5927   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
5928   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
5929   libsmokeqtxml4-3
5930   libsmokesolid3
5931   libsmokesoprano3
5932   libtaskmanager4a
5933   libtidy-0.99-0
5934   libweather-ion4a
5935   libxklavier16
5936   libxxf86misc1
5937   okteta
5938   oxygencursors
5939   plasma-dataengines-addons
5940   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
5941   plasma-widget-lancelot
5942   plasma-widgets-addons
5943   plasma-widgets-workspace
5944   polkit-kde-1
5945   ruby1.8
5946   systemsettings
5947   update-notifier-common
5948 </p></blockquote>
5949
5950 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
5951 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
5952 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
5953 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
5954
5955       </div>
5956       <div class="tags">
5957
5958
5959         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>.
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/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html">Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</a>
5969       </div>
5970       <div class="date">
5971         22nd November 2010
5972       </div>
5973       <div class="body">
5974         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
5975 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
5976 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
5977 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
5978 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
5979 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
5980 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
5981 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
5982 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
5983
5984 <p>I found
5985 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
5986 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
5987 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
5988 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
5989 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
5990 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
5991
5992 <pre>
5993 #!/bin/sh
5994
5995 # Based on
5996 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
5997
5998 set -e
5999 set -x
6000
6001 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
6002     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
6003     exit 1
6004 else
6005     host="$1"
6006 fi
6007
6008 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
6009     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
6010     exit 1
6011 fi
6012
6013 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
6014 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6015 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6016 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
6017
6018 img=$host.img
6019 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
6020 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
6021
6022 parted $img mklabel msdos
6023 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
6024 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
6025 parted $img set 1 boot on
6026
6027 modprobe dm-mod
6028 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
6029 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
6030
6031 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
6032 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
6033 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
6034
6035 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
6036 losetup -d /dev/loop0
6037 </pre>
6038
6039 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
6040 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
6041
6042 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
6043 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
6044 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
6045 seem to work just fine.</p>
6046
6047       </div>
6048       <div class="tags">
6049
6050
6051         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>.
6052
6053
6054       </div>
6055     </div>
6056     <div class="padding"></div>
6057
6058     <div class="entry">
6059       <div class="title">
6060         <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>
6061       </div>
6062       <div class="date">
6063         20th November 2010
6064       </div>
6065       <div class="body">
6066         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
6067 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6068 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
6069 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
6070
6071 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
6072 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
6073 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
6074
6075 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6076
6077 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6078
6079 <blockquote><p>
6080   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
6081   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
6082   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
6083   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
6084   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
6085   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
6086   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
6087   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
6088   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
6089   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
6090   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6091   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6092   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
6093   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
6094   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
6095   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
6096   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6097   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
6098   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6099   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
6100   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
6101   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6102   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
6103   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
6104   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
6105   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6106   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6107   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
6108   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6109   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
6110   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
6111   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6112   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
6113   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
6114   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
6115   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
6116   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
6117   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
6118   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
6119   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
6120   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
6121   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
6122   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
6123   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
6124   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
6125   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
6126   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
6127   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
6128   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
6129   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
6130   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
6131   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
6132   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6133   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
6134   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
6135   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
6136   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
6137   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
6138   zip
6139 </p></blockquote>
6140
6141 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
6142
6143 <blockquote><p>
6144   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
6145   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
6146   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
6147   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
6148   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
6149   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
6150   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
6151   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
6152   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
6153   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
6154   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
6155   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6156   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6157   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6158   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6159   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
6160   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6161   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
6162   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
6163   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
6164   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
6165   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
6166   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6167   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
6168   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
6169   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
6170   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
6171   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
6172   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
6173 </p></blockquote>
6174
6175 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6176
6177 <blockquote><p>
6178   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6179 </p></blockquote>
6180
6181 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6182
6183 <blockquote><p>
6184 [nothing]
6185 </p></blockquote>
6186
6187 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6188
6189 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6190
6191 <blockquote><p>
6192   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
6193   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6194   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
6195   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
6196   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
6197   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
6198   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6199   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
6200   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
6201   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6202   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
6203   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
6204   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
6205   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
6206   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
6207   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
6208   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
6209   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
6210   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
6211   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
6212   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
6213   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
6214   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
6215   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
6216   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
6217   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
6218   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
6219   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
6220   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
6221   ttf-sazanami-gothic
6222 </p></blockquote>
6223
6224 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6225
6226 <blockquote><p>
6227   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
6228   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
6229   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
6230   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
6231   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
6232   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
6233   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
6234   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
6235   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
6236   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
6237   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
6238   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
6239   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
6240   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
6241   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6242   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6243   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
6244   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
6245   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6246   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
6247   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6248   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
6249   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6250   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6251   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
6252   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
6253   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
6254   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
6255   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
6256   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
6257   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
6258   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
6259   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
6260 </p></blockquote>
6261
6262 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6263
6264 <blockquote><p>
6265   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
6266   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
6267   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
6268   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
6269   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6270   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
6271   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6272 </p></blockquote>
6273
6274 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6275
6276 <blockquote><p>
6277   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
6278 </p></blockquote>
6279
6280       </div>
6281       <div class="tags">
6282
6283
6284         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>.
6285
6286
6287       </div>
6288     </div>
6289     <div class="padding"></div>
6290
6291     <div class="entry">
6292       <div class="title">
6293         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
6294       </div>
6295       <div class="date">
6296         20th November 2010
6297       </div>
6298       <div class="body">
6299         <p>Answering
6300 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
6301 call from the Gnash project</a> for
6302 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
6303 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
6304 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
6305 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
6306 releases out more often.</p>
6307
6308 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
6309 I have considered setting up a <a
6310 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
6311 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
6312 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
6313 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
6314 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
6315 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
6316 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
6317 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
6318 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
6319 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
6320 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
6321 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
6322
6323       </div>
6324       <div class="tags">
6325
6326
6327         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>.
6328
6329
6330       </div>
6331     </div>
6332     <div class="padding"></div>
6333
6334     <div class="entry">
6335       <div class="title">
6336         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
6337       </div>
6338       <div class="date">
6339          9th November 2010
6340       </div>
6341       <div class="body">
6342         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
6343
6344 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
6345 3D linked in from
6346 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
6347 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
6348
6349       </div>
6350       <div class="tags">
6351
6352
6353         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>.
6354
6355
6356       </div>
6357     </div>
6358     <div class="padding"></div>
6359
6360     <div class="entry">
6361       <div class="title">
6362         <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>
6363       </div>
6364       <div class="date">
6365          7th November 2010
6366       </div>
6367       <div class="body">
6368         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
6369 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
6370 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
6371 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
6372 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
6373 working using this DVD.</p>
6374
6375 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
6376 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
6377 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
6378 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
6379 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
6380 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
6381 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
6382
6383 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
6384 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
6385 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
6386 Debian archive.</p>
6387
6388 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
6389 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
6390 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
6391 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
6392 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
6393 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
6394 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
6395 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
6396 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
6397 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
6398 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
6399 free X driver should work.</p>
6400
6401 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
6402 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
6403 DVD more useful again.</p>
6404
6405       </div>
6406       <div class="tags">
6407
6408
6409         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6410
6411
6412       </div>
6413     </div>
6414     <div class="padding"></div>
6415
6416     <div class="entry">
6417       <div class="title">
6418         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
6419       </div>
6420       <div class="date">
6421         24th October 2010
6422       </div>
6423       <div class="body">
6424         <p>Some updates.</p>
6425
6426 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
6427 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
6428 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
6429 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
6430 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
6431 :)</p>
6432
6433 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
6434 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
6435 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
6436 It is called
6437 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
6438 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
6439 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
6440 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
6441 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
6442 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
6443
6444 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
6445 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
6446 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
6447 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
6448 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
6449 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
6450 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
6451 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
6452 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
6453 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
6454
6455       </div>
6456       <div class="tags">
6457
6458
6459         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6460
6461
6462       </div>
6463     </div>
6464     <div class="padding"></div>
6465
6466     <div class="entry">
6467       <div class="title">
6468         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pledge_for_funding_to_the_Gnash_project_to_get_AVM2_support.html">Pledge for funding to the Gnash project to get AVM2 support</a>
6469       </div>
6470       <div class="date">
6471         19th October 2010
6472       </div>
6473       <div class="body">
6474         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
6475 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
6476 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
6477 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
6478 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
6479 AVM2 flash files.</p>
6480
6481 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
6482 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
6483 following text:</P>
6484
6485 <p><blockquote>
6486
6487   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
6488   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
6489
6490   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
6491
6492   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
6493
6494   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
6495   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
6496   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
6497   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
6498   days. The project web page is available from
6499   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
6500   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
6501   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
6502
6503   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
6504   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
6505   to get this to happen.</p>
6506
6507   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
6508   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
6509
6510 </blockquote></p>
6511
6512 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
6513 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
6514 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
6515 :)</p>
6516
6517       </div>
6518       <div class="tags">
6519
6520
6521         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>.
6522
6523
6524       </div>
6525     </div>
6526     <div class="padding"></div>
6527
6528     <div class="entry">
6529       <div class="title">
6530         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_version_of_a_Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot.html">First version of a Perl library to control the Spykee robot</a>
6531       </div>
6532       <div class="date">
6533          9th October 2010
6534       </div>
6535       <div class="body">
6536         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
6537 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
6538 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
6539 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
6540 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
6541 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
6542 robots.</p>
6543
6544 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
6545 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
6546 a few less important features too.</p>
6547
6548 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
6549 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
6550 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
6551 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
6552
6553 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
6554 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
6555 source or binary package:</p>
6556
6557 <p><ul>
6558 <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>
6559 <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>
6560 <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>
6561 </ul></p>
6562
6563 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
6564 please let me know.</p>
6565
6566       </div>
6567       <div class="tags">
6568
6569
6570         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>.
6571
6572
6573       </div>
6574     </div>
6575     <div class="padding"></div>
6576
6577     <div class="entry">
6578       <div class="title">
6579         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
6580       </div>
6581       <div class="date">
6582          3rd October 2010
6583       </div>
6584       <div class="body">
6585         <p><ul>
6586
6587 <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
6588 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
6589
6590 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
6591 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
6592 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
6593
6594 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
6595 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
6596 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
6597 simple setup.
6598
6599 </ul></p>
6600
6601       </div>
6602       <div class="tags">
6603
6604
6605         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>.
6606
6607
6608       </div>
6609     </div>
6610     <div class="padding"></div>
6611
6612     <div class="entry">
6613       <div class="title">
6614         <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>
6615       </div>
6616       <div class="date">
6617          9th September 2010
6618       </div>
6619       <div class="body">
6620         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
6621 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
6622 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
6623 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
6624 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
6625 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
6626 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
6627 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
6628 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
6629
6630 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
6631 written:</p>
6632
6633 <blockquote>
6634 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
6635 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
6636 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
6637 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
6638 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
6639
6640 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
6641 standard.</p>
6642 </blockquote>
6643
6644 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
6645 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
6646 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
6647 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
6648
6649 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
6650 read
6651 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
6652 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
6653 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
6654 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
6655 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
6656 the issue.  The solution is to support the
6657 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
6658 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
6659 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
6660
6661       </div>
6662       <div class="tags">
6663
6664
6665         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>.
6666
6667
6668       </div>
6669     </div>
6670     <div class="padding"></div>
6671
6672     <div class="entry">
6673       <div class="title">
6674         <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>
6675       </div>
6676       <div class="date">
6677          4th September 2010
6678       </div>
6679       <div class="body">
6680         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
6681 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
6682 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
6683 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
6684 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
6685 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
6686 installed.</p>
6687
6688 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
6689 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
6690 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
6691 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
6692 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6693 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
6694 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
6695 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
6696 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
6697
6698 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
6699 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
6700 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
6701 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
6702 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
6703 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
6704 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
6705 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
6706 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
6707 pages they want to visit.</p>
6708
6709 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
6710 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
6711 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
6712 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
6713 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
6714 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
6715 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
6716 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
6717 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
6718 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
6719 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
6720
6721       </div>
6722       <div class="tags">
6723
6724
6725         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>.
6726
6727
6728       </div>
6729     </div>
6730     <div class="padding"></div>
6731
6732     <div class="entry">
6733       <div class="title">
6734         <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>
6735       </div>
6736       <div class="date">
6737          1st September 2010
6738       </div>
6739       <div class="body">
6740         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
6741 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
6742 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
6743 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
6744 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
6745 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
6746 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
6747 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
6748 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
6749 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
6750 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
6751 drive around.</p>
6752
6753 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
6754 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
6755
6756 <p><pre>
6757 use Spykee;
6758 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
6759 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
6760 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
6761 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
6762 $spykee->left();
6763 sleep 2;
6764 $spykee->right();
6765 sleep 2;
6766 $spykee->forward();
6767 sleep 2;
6768 $spykee->back();
6769 sleep 2;
6770 $spykee->stop();
6771 </pre></p>
6772
6773 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
6774 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
6775 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
6776 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
6777 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
6778 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
6779 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
6780 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
6781 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
6782 going. :).</p>
6783
6784 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
6785 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
6786 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
6787 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
6788
6789       </div>
6790       <div class="tags">
6791
6792
6793         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>.
6794
6795
6796       </div>
6797     </div>
6798     <div class="padding"></div>
6799
6800     <div class="entry">
6801       <div class="title">
6802         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
6803       </div>
6804       <div class="date">
6805         30th August 2010
6806       </div>
6807       <div class="body">
6808         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
6809 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
6810 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
6811 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
6812 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
6813 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
6814 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
6815
6816 <pre>
6817 % ln foo bar
6818 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
6819 %
6820 </pre>
6821
6822 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
6823 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
6824 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
6825 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
6826 nevertheless. :)</p>
6827
6828 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
6829 git from
6830 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
6831
6832       </div>
6833       <div class="tags">
6834
6835
6836         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6837
6838
6839       </div>
6840     </div>
6841     <div class="padding"></div>
6842
6843     <div class="entry">
6844       <div class="title">
6845         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
6846       </div>
6847       <div class="date">
6848         26th August 2010
6849       </div>
6850       <div class="body">
6851         <p>My file system sematics program
6852 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
6853 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
6854 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
6855 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
6856 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
6857 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
6858 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
6859 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
6860 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
6861 script:</p>
6862
6863 <pre>
6864 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
6865   mode_t retval = 0;
6866   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
6867   if (-1 != fd) {
6868     unlink(name);
6869     struct stat statbuf;
6870     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
6871       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
6872     }
6873     close(fd);
6874   }
6875   return retval;
6876 }
6877
6878 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
6879 int test_umask(void) {
6880   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
6881
6882   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
6883   mode_t newmode;
6884   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
6885     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
6886            newmode);
6887   }
6888   umask(007);
6889   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
6890     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
6891            newmode);
6892   }
6893
6894   umask (orig_umask);
6895   return 0;
6896 }
6897
6898 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
6899   [...]
6900   test_umask();
6901   return 0;
6902 }
6903 </pre>
6904
6905 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
6906
6907 <pre>
6908 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
6909 info: testing symlink creation
6910 info: testing subdirectory creation
6911 info: testing fcntl locking
6912   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
6913   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
6914   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
6915   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
6916   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
6917   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
6918 info: testing umask effect on file creation
6919 </pre>
6920
6921 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
6922 result:</p>
6923
6924 <pre>
6925 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
6926 info: testing symlink creation
6927 info: testing subdirectory creation
6928 info: testing fcntl locking
6929   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
6930   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
6931   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
6932   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
6933   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
6934   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
6935 info: testing umask effect on file creation
6936   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
6937   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
6938 </pre>
6939
6940 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
6941 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
6942 directory.</p>
6943
6944 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
6945 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
6946
6947 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
6948 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
6949 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
6950
6951       </div>
6952       <div class="tags">
6953
6954
6955         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6956
6957
6958       </div>
6959     </div>
6960     <div class="padding"></div>
6961
6962     <div class="entry">
6963       <div class="title">
6964         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
6965       </div>
6966       <div class="date">
6967         15th August 2010
6968       </div>
6969       <div class="body">
6970         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
6971 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
6972 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
6973 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
6974 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
6975 long time.</p>
6976
6977       </div>
6978       <div class="tags">
6979
6980
6981         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>.
6982
6983
6984       </div>
6985     </div>
6986     <div class="padding"></div>
6987
6988     <div class="entry">
6989       <div class="title">
6990         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
6991       </div>
6992       <div class="date">
6993          9th August 2010
6994       </div>
6995       <div class="body">
6996         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
6997 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
6998 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
6999 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
7000 generated configuration.</p>
7001
7002 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
7003 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
7004 without any manual configuration.</p>
7005
7006 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
7007 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
7008 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
7009 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
7010 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
7011 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
7012 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
7013 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
7014 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
7015 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
7016 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
7017 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
7018 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
7019 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
7020 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
7021 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
7022 use.</p>
7023
7024 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
7025 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
7026 working properly out of the box:</p>
7027
7028 <ul>
7029 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
7030 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
7031 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
7032 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
7033 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
7034 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
7035 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
7036 </ul>
7037
7038 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
7039
7040 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
7041 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
7042 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
7043 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
7044 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
7045
7046 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
7047 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
7048 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
7049 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
7050 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
7051 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
7052 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
7053 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
7054
7055 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
7056 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
7057 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
7058 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
7059 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
7060 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
7061 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
7062 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
7063 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
7064 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
7065 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
7066 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
7067 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
7068 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
7069 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
7070 current DNS domain is used.</p>
7071
7072 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
7073 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
7074 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
7075 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
7076 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
7077 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
7078 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
7079 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
7080 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
7081 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
7082 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
7083 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
7084 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
7085
7086 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
7087 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
7088 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
7089 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
7090 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
7091 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
7092 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
7093 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
7094 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
7095 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
7096 do for now. :)</p>
7097
7098 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
7099 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
7100 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
7101 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
7102 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
7103 yet.</p>
7104
7105 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
7106 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7107
7108 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
7109 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
7110 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
7111 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
7112
7113       </div>
7114       <div class="tags">
7115
7116
7117         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7118
7119
7120       </div>
7121     </div>
7122     <div class="padding"></div>
7123
7124     <div class="entry">
7125       <div class="title">
7126         <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>
7127       </div>
7128       <div class="date">
7129          8th August 2010
7130       </div>
7131       <div class="body">
7132         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
7133 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
7134 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
7135 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
7136 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
7137 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
7138 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
7139
7140 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
7141 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
7142 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
7143 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
7144 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
7145 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
7146 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
7147
7148 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
7149 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
7150 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
7151 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
7152 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
7153
7154 <pre>
7155 /*
7156  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
7157  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
7158  * directory.
7159  * License: GPL v2 or later
7160  *
7161  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
7162  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
7163 */
7164
7165 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
7166 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
7167 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
7168
7169 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
7170
7171 #include &lt;errno.h>
7172 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
7173 #include &lt;stdio.h>
7174 #include &lt;string.h>
7175 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
7176 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
7177 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
7178 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
7179 #include &lt;unistd.h>
7180
7181 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
7182 /*
7183  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
7184  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
7185  * below.
7186  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
7187  */
7188 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
7189 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
7190   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
7191 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
7192   char *zErrMsg;
7193   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
7194   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
7195   unlink(name);
7196   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
7197   if( rc ){
7198     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
7199     sqlite3_close(db);
7200     return -1;
7201   }
7202
7203   /* create tables */
7204   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
7205   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
7206     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
7207     sqlite3_close(db);
7208     return -1;
7209   }
7210   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
7211   sqlite3_close(db);
7212   return 0;
7213 }
7214 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
7215
7216 /*
7217  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
7218  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
7219  * done in the sqlite3 library.
7220  * See also
7221  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
7222  * POSIX specification
7223  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
7224  */
7225 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
7226   struct flock fl;
7227   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
7228   unlink(name);
7229   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
7230   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
7231
7232   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
7233   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
7234   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
7235   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
7236   fl.l_len    = 1;
7237   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
7238   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
7239
7240   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
7241   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
7242   fl.l_len    = 510;
7243   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
7244   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
7245
7246   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
7247   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
7248   fl.l_len    = 1;
7249   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
7250   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
7251
7252   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
7253   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
7254   fl.l_len    = 1;
7255   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
7256   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
7257
7258   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
7259   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
7260   fl.l_len    = 510;
7261   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
7262
7263   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
7264   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
7265   fl.l_len    = 2;
7266   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
7267   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
7268
7269   close(fd);
7270   return 0;
7271 }
7272
7273 /*
7274  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
7275  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
7276  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
7277  * slowing down file operations.
7278  */
7279 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
7280 #define LEVELS 5
7281   char *path = strdup("test");
7282   char *dirs[LEVELS];
7283   int level;
7284   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
7285   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
7286     char *newpath = NULL;
7287     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
7288       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
7289              path, strerror(errno));
7290       break;
7291     }
7292     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
7293     free(path);
7294     path = newpath;
7295   }
7296   return 0;
7297 }
7298
7299 /*
7300  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
7301  * KDE.
7302  */
7303 int test_symlinks(void) {
7304   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
7305   unlink("symlink");
7306   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
7307     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
7308   return 0;
7309 }
7310
7311 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
7312   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
7313   test_symlinks();
7314   test_subdirectory_creation();
7315 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
7316   test_sqlite_open();
7317 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
7318   test_gcompris_locking();
7319   return 0;
7320 }
7321 </pre>
7322
7323 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
7324 this:</p>
7325
7326 <pre>
7327 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
7328 info: testing symlink creation
7329 info: testing subdirectory creation
7330 info: sqlite worked
7331 info: testing fcntl locking
7332   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
7333   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
7334   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
7335   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
7336   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
7337   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
7338 </pre>
7339
7340 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
7341 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
7342 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
7343 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
7344 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
7345 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
7346 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
7347 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
7348
7349 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
7350 it. :)</p>
7351
7352 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
7353 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
7354 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
7355
7356       </div>
7357       <div class="tags">
7358
7359
7360         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7361
7362
7363       </div>
7364     </div>
7365     <div class="padding"></div>
7366
7367     <div class="entry">
7368       <div class="title">
7369         <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>
7370       </div>
7371       <div class="date">
7372          7th August 2010
7373       </div>
7374       <div class="body">
7375         <p>A few days ago, I
7376 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
7377 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
7378 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
7379 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
7380 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
7381 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
7382 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
7383 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
7384 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
7385
7386 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
7387 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
7388 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
7389 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
7390 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
7391 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
7392 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
7393 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
7394 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
7395 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
7396 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
7397 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
7398 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
7399 gave it a IP address.</p>
7400
7401 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
7402 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
7403 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
7404 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
7405 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
7406 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
7407 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
7408 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
7409
7410 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
7411 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
7412 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
7413 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
7414 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
7415 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
7416
7417 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
7418 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
7419 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
7420 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
7421 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
7422 with UID and GID values.</p>
7423
7424 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
7425 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7426
7427       </div>
7428       <div class="tags">
7429
7430
7431         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7432
7433
7434       </div>
7435     </div>
7436     <div class="padding"></div>
7437
7438     <div class="entry">
7439       <div class="title">
7440         <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>
7441       </div>
7442       <div class="date">
7443          3rd August 2010
7444       </div>
7445       <div class="body">
7446         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
7447 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
7448 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
7449 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
7450 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
7451 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
7452 servers.</p>
7453
7454 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
7455 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
7456 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
7457 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
7458 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
7459 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
7460 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
7461 .uio.no.</p>
7462
7463 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
7464 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
7465 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
7466 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
7467 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
7468 university servers.</p>
7469
7470 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
7471 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
7472 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
7473 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
7474 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
7475 uses.</p>
7476
7477       </div>
7478       <div class="tags">
7479
7480
7481         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7482
7483
7484       </div>
7485     </div>
7486     <div class="padding"></div>
7487
7488     <div class="entry">
7489       <div class="title">
7490         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
7491       </div>
7492       <div class="date">
7493         27th July 2010
7494       </div>
7495       <div class="body">
7496         <p>I discovered this while doing
7497 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
7498 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
7499 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
7500 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
7501 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
7502
7503 <p>An example is from todays
7504 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
7505 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
7506 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
7507 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
7508 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
7509 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
7510 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
7511
7512 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
7513
7514 <blockquote><pre>
7515 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
7516  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
7517   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
7518 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
7519  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
7520 </pre></blockquote>
7521
7522 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
7523 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
7524 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
7525 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
7526 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
7527 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
7528 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
7529 of dependency loops.</p>
7530
7531 <p>Thanks to
7532 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
7533 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
7534 dependencies
7535 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
7536 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
7537
7538 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
7539 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
7540 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
7541 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
7542 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
7543 it.</p>
7544
7545       </div>
7546       <div class="tags">
7547
7548
7549         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>.
7550
7551
7552       </div>
7553     </div>
7554     <div class="padding"></div>
7555
7556     <div class="entry">
7557       <div class="title">
7558         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu_test_release__alpha0__based_on_Squeeze_is_released.html">First Debian Edu test release (alpha0) based on Squeeze is released</a>
7559       </div>
7560       <div class="date">
7561         27th July 2010
7562       </div>
7563       <div class="body">
7564         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
7565 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
7566 completed.</p>
7567
7568 <blockquote>
7569 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
7570 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
7571 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
7572 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
7573 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
7574 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
7575 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
7576 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
7577
7578 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
7579 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
7580 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
7581
7582 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
7583 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
7584 much.</p>
7585
7586 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
7587
7588 <ul>
7589 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
7590 <ul>
7591   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
7592          combination with some new artwork
7593   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
7594   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
7595   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
7596   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
7597   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
7598   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
7599   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
7600   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
7601   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
7602 </ul></li>
7603 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
7604     Enabled for:
7605 <ul>
7606   <li>PAM
7607   <li>LDAP
7608   <li>IMAP
7609   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
7610 </ul>
7611 </li>
7612 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
7613 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
7614     fetched from LDAP.</li>
7615 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
7616 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
7617 </ul>
7618 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
7619
7620 <ul>
7621 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
7622     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
7623     for testing.</li>
7624 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
7625     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
7626     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
7627 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
7628 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
7629 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
7630 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
7631     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
7632 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
7633     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
7634     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
7635 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
7636     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
7637     and help out with translations.</li>
7638 </ul>
7639
7640 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
7641
7642 <ul>
7643 <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>
7644 <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>
7645 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
7646 </ul>
7647 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
7648
7649 <ul>
7650 <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>
7651 <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>
7652 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
7653 </ul>
7654
7655 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
7656 get closer to the final release.</p>
7657
7658 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
7659
7660 <ul>
7661 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
7662 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
7663 </ul>
7664
7665 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
7666 <ul>
7667 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
7668 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
7669 </ul>
7670 <p>How to report bugs:
7671 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
7672
7673 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
7674 </blockquote>
7675
7676       </div>
7677       <div class="tags">
7678
7679
7680         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7681
7682
7683       </div>
7684     </div>
7685     <div class="padding"></div>
7686
7687     <div class="entry">
7688       <div class="title">
7689         <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>
7690       </div>
7691       <div class="date">
7692         25th July 2010
7693       </div>
7694       <div class="body">
7695         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
7696 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
7697 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
7698 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
7699 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
7700
7701 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
7702 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
7703 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
7704 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
7705 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
7706 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
7707 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
7708
7709 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
7710 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
7711 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
7712 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
7713 up. :)</p>
7714
7715 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
7716 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
7717 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
7718
7719 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
7720 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
7721 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
7722 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
7723 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
7724 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
7725 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
7726 release another day.</p>
7727
7728 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
7729 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7730
7731       </div>
7732       <div class="tags">
7733
7734
7735         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7736
7737
7738       </div>
7739     </div>
7740     <div class="padding"></div>
7741
7742     <div class="entry">
7743       <div class="title">
7744         <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>
7745       </div>
7746       <div class="date">
7747         18th July 2010
7748       </div>
7749       <div class="body">
7750         <p>Thanks to
7751 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
7752 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
7753 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
7754 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
7755 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
7756 only available from the development server, until more experience is
7757 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
7758
7759 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
7760 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
7761 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
7762 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
7763 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
7764 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
7765 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
7766
7767       </div>
7768       <div class="tags">
7769
7770
7771         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>.
7772
7773
7774       </div>
7775     </div>
7776     <div class="padding"></div>
7777
7778     <div class="entry">
7779       <div class="title">
7780         <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>
7781       </div>
7782       <div class="date">
7783         17th July 2010
7784       </div>
7785       <div class="body">
7786         <p>This is a
7787 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
7788 on my
7789 <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
7790 work</a> on
7791 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
7792 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
7793
7794 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
7795 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
7796 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
7797 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
7798
7799 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
7800 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
7801 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
7802
7803 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
7804
7805 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
7806 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
7807 the web.
7808
7809 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
7810 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
7811 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
7812 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
7813 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
7814 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
7815
7816 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
7817 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
7818 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
7819 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
7820 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
7821 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
7822 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
7823 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
7824 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
7825 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
7826 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
7827 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
7828 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
7829 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
7830 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
7831 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
7832
7833 <blockquote><pre>
7834 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7835   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7836   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7837   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7838   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7839   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7840   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7841
7842 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7843   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7844   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
7845   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
7846   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
7847   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
7848 </pre></blockquote>
7849
7850 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
7851 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
7852 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
7853 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7854 also exist.</p>
7855
7856 <blockquote><pre>
7857 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7858 objectclass: top
7859 objectclass: dnsdomain
7860 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7861 dc: tjener
7862 arecord: 10.0.2.2
7863 associateddomain: tjener.intern
7864
7865 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7866 objectclass: top
7867 objectclass: dnsdomain2
7868 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7869 dc: 2
7870 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
7871 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
7872 </pre></blockquote>
7873
7874 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
7875 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
7876 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
7877 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
7878 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
7879 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
7880 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
7881 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
7882 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
7883 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
7884 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
7885 instead.</p>
7886
7887 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
7888 like this:</p>
7889
7890 <blockquote><pre>
7891 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7892   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7893   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7894   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7895   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7896   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7897
7898 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7899   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
7900 </pre></blockquote>
7901
7902 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
7903 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
7904 reverse lookups.</p>
7905
7906 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
7907 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
7908 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
7909 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
7910
7911 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
7912 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
7913 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
7914
7915 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
7916 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
7917 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
7918 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
7919 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
7920
7921 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
7922 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
7923 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
7924 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
7925 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
7926
7927 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
7928 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
7929 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
7930 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
7931 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
7932 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
7933
7934 <blockquote><pre>
7935 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
7936     SUP top
7937     AUXILIARY
7938     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
7939           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
7940           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
7941           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
7942           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
7943     ))
7944 </pre></blockquote>
7945
7946 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
7947 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
7948 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
7949 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
7950 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
7951 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
7952
7953 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
7954
7955 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
7956 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
7957 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
7958 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
7959 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
7960
7961 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
7962 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
7963 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
7964 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
7965
7966 <blockquote><pre>
7967 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
7968 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
7969 </pre></blockquote>
7970
7971 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
7972 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
7973 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
7974 search result is this entry:</p>
7975
7976 <blockquote><pre>
7977 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7978 cn: dhcp
7979 objectClass: top
7980 objectClass: dhcpServer
7981 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7982 </pre></blockquote>
7983
7984 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
7985 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
7986 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
7987 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
7988 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
7989 The search result is this entry:</p>
7990
7991 <blockquote><pre>
7992 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7993 cn: DHCP Config
7994 objectClass: top
7995 objectClass: dhcpService
7996 objectClass: dhcpOptions
7997 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7998 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
7999 dhcpStatements: authoritative
8000 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
8001 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
8002 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
8003 </pre></blockquote>
8004
8005 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
8006 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
8007 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
8008 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
8009 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
8010 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
8011 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
8012 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
8013 related computer objects.</p>
8014
8015 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
8016 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
8017 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
8018 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
8019 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
8020 like:</p>
8021
8022 <blockquote><pre>
8023 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8024 cn: hostname
8025 objectClass: top
8026 objectClass: dhcpHost
8027 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
8028 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
8029 </pre></blockquote>
8030
8031 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
8032 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
8033 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
8034 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
8035 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
8036 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
8037 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
8038 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
8039 structural object class.
8040
8041 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
8042
8043 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
8044 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
8045 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
8046 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
8047 in the configuration.</p>
8048
8049 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
8050 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
8051 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
8052 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
8053 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
8054 structure.</p>
8055
8056 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
8057 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
8058
8059 <blockquote><pre>
8060 ou=services
8061   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
8062     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
8063     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
8064       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
8065         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
8066     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
8067       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
8068         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
8069     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
8070       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
8071 </pre></blockquote>
8072
8073 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
8074 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
8075 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
8076 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
8077
8078 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
8079 like this:</p>
8080
8081 <blockquote><pre>
8082 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8083 dc: hostname
8084 objectClass: top
8085 objectClass: dhcpHost
8086 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
8087 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
8088 associateddomain: hostname.intern
8089 arecord: 10.11.12.13
8090 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
8091 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
8092 </pre></blockquote>
8093
8094 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
8095 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
8096 auxiliary object class.</p>
8097
8098       </div>
8099       <div class="tags">
8100
8101
8102         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>.
8103
8104
8105       </div>
8106     </div>
8107     <div class="padding"></div>
8108
8109     <div class="entry">
8110       <div class="title">
8111         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
8112       </div>
8113       <div class="date">
8114         14th July 2010
8115       </div>
8116       <div class="body">
8117         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
8118 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
8119 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
8120 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
8121 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
8122
8123 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
8124 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
8125
8126 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
8127 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
8128 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
8129 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
8130 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
8131 to a slave DNS server.</p>
8132
8133 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
8134 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
8135 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
8136 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
8137 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
8138 seem to work.</p>
8139
8140 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
8141 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
8142 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
8143 this:</p>
8144
8145 <blockquote><pre>
8146   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8147   cn: hostname
8148   objectClass: dhcphost
8149   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
8150   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
8151   associateddomain: hostname.intern
8152   arecord: 10.11.12.13
8153   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
8154   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
8155   ldapconfigsound: Y
8156 </pre></blockquote>
8157
8158 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
8159 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
8160 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
8161 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
8162
8163 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
8164 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
8165 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
8166 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
8167 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
8168 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
8169 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
8170 might be a good place to put it.</p>
8171
8172 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8173 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8174
8175       </div>
8176       <div class="tags">
8177
8178
8179         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>.
8180
8181
8182       </div>
8183     </div>
8184     <div class="padding"></div>
8185
8186     <div class="entry">
8187       <div class="title">
8188         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
8189       </div>
8190       <div class="date">
8191         11th July 2010
8192       </div>
8193       <div class="body">
8194         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
8195 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
8196 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
8197 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
8198
8199 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
8200 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
8201 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
8202 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
8203 LTSP clients.</p>
8204
8205 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
8206 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
8207 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
8208
8209 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
8210 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
8211 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
8212
8213 <blockquote><pre>
8214 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
8215 #
8216 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
8217 #
8218 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
8219 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
8220 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
8221 #
8222 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
8223 # existence of attribute names.
8224 #
8225 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
8226 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
8227 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
8228 #
8229 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
8230 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
8231 #
8232 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
8233 #     SUP top
8234 #     AUXILIARY
8235 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
8236
8237 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
8238 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
8239     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
8240     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
8241         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
8242         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
8243             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
8244             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
8245             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
8246             # bass value on to clients
8247             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
8248         done
8249     done
8250 fi
8251 </pre></blockquote>
8252
8253 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
8254 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
8255 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
8256 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
8257 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
8258
8259 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8260 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8261
8262 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
8263 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
8264 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
8265 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
8266 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
8267 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
8268
8269       </div>
8270       <div class="tags">
8271
8272
8273         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>.
8274
8275
8276       </div>
8277     </div>
8278     <div class="padding"></div>
8279
8280     <div class="entry">
8281       <div class="title">
8282         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
8283       </div>
8284       <div class="date">
8285          9th July 2010
8286       </div>
8287       <div class="body">
8288         <p>Since
8289 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
8290 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
8291 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
8292 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
8293 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
8294 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
8295 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
8296 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
8297 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
8298 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
8299 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
8300 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
8301 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
8302
8303       </div>
8304       <div class="tags">
8305
8306
8307         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>.
8308
8309
8310       </div>
8311     </div>
8312     <div class="padding"></div>
8313
8314     <div class="entry">
8315       <div class="title">
8316         <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>
8317       </div>
8318       <div class="date">
8319          3rd July 2010
8320       </div>
8321       <div class="body">
8322         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
8323 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
8324 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
8325 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
8326 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
8327 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
8328 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
8329 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
8330
8331 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
8332 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
8333 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
8334 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
8335 publish the difference.</p>
8336
8337 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8338
8339 <blockquote><p>
8340   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8341   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
8342   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
8343   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
8344   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
8345   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
8346   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
8347   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
8348 </p></blockquote>
8349
8350 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8351
8352 <blockquote><p>
8353   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
8354   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
8355   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
8356   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
8357   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
8358   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
8359   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
8360   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
8361   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
8362   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
8363   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
8364   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
8365   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
8366   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
8367   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
8368   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
8369   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
8370   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
8371   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
8372   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
8373 </p></blockquote>
8374
8375 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8376
8377 <blockquote><p>
8378   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
8379   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
8380   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
8381   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
8382   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
8383   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
8384   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
8385   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
8386   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
8387   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
8388   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
8389   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
8390   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
8391   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
8392   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
8393   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
8394   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
8395   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
8396   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
8397   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
8398   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
8399 </p></blockquote>
8400
8401 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8402
8403 <blockquote><p>
8404   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
8405   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
8406   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
8407 </p></blockquote>
8408
8409 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
8410 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
8411 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
8412 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
8413 the difference somewhat.
8414
8415       </div>
8416       <div class="tags">
8417
8418
8419         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>.
8420
8421
8422       </div>
8423     </div>
8424     <div class="padding"></div>
8425
8426     <div class="entry">
8427       <div class="title">
8428         <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>
8429       </div>
8430       <div class="date">
8431          1st July 2010
8432       </div>
8433       <div class="body">
8434         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
8435 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
8436 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
8437 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
8438 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
8439 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
8440 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
8441 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
8442 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
8443
8444 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
8445
8446 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
8447 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
8448 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
8449 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
8450 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
8451 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
8452 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
8453 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
8454 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
8455 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
8456 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
8457 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
8458 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
8459 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
8460 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
8461
8462 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
8463
8464 <blockquote><pre>
8465 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
8466 </pre></blockquote>
8467
8468 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
8469 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
8470 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
8471 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
8472 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
8473 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
8474 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
8475 on how to get this working.</p>
8476
8477 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
8478 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
8479 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
8480 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
8481 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
8482 instructions I found in the
8483 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
8484 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
8485
8486 <blockquote><pre>
8487         debug-level             0
8488         reload-count            unlimited
8489         paranoia                no
8490
8491         enable-cache            passwd          yes
8492         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
8493         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
8494         suggested-size          passwd          211
8495         check-files             passwd          yes
8496         persistent              passwd          yes
8497         shared                  passwd          yes
8498         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
8499         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
8500
8501         enable-cache            group           yes
8502         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
8503         negative-time-to-live   group           20
8504         suggested-size          group           211
8505         check-files             group           yes
8506         persistent              group           yes
8507         shared                  group           yes
8508         max-db-size             group           33554432
8509         auto-propagate          group           yes
8510
8511         enable-cache            hosts           no
8512         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
8513         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
8514         suggested-size          hosts           211
8515         check-files             hosts           yes
8516         persistent              hosts           yes
8517         shared                  hosts           yes
8518         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
8519
8520         enable-cache            services        yes
8521         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
8522         negative-time-to-live   services        20
8523         suggested-size          services        211
8524         check-files             services        yes
8525         persistent              services        yes
8526         shared                  services        yes
8527         max-db-size             services        33554432
8528 </pre></blockquote>
8529
8530 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
8531 automatically like the one provided in
8532 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
8533 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
8534 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
8535 look like this:</p>
8536
8537 <blockquote><pre>
8538 passwd:         files ldap
8539 group:          files ldap
8540 shadow:         files ldap
8541 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
8542 networks:       files
8543 protocols:      files
8544 services:       files
8545 ethers:         files
8546 rpc:            files
8547 netgroup:       files ldap
8548 </pre></blockquote>
8549
8550 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
8551 shadow and netgroup.</p>
8552
8553 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
8554 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
8555 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
8556 attributes cached.
8557
8558 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
8559   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
8560
8561 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
8562 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
8563 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
8564 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
8565 discovered sssd.</p>
8566
8567 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
8568
8569 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
8570 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
8571 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
8572 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
8573 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
8574 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
8575 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
8576 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
8577 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
8578 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
8579 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
8580 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
8581 version 1.2 is now in testing.
8582
8583 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
8584 roaming setup I want</p>
8585
8586 <blockquote><pre>
8587 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
8588 </pre></blockquote>
8589
8590 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
8591 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
8592
8593 <blockquote><pre>
8594 [sssd]
8595 config_file_version = 2
8596 reconnection_retries = 3
8597 sbus_timeout = 30
8598 services = nss, pam
8599 domains = INTERN
8600
8601 [nss]
8602 filter_groups = root
8603 filter_users = root
8604 reconnection_retries = 3
8605
8606 [pam]
8607 reconnection_retries = 3
8608
8609 [domain/INTERN]
8610 enumerate = false
8611 cache_credentials = true
8612
8613 id_provider = ldap
8614 auth_provider = ldap
8615 chpass_provider = ldap
8616
8617 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
8618 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8619 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
8620 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
8621 </pre></blockquote>
8622
8623 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
8624 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
8625
8626 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
8627 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
8628 modify it manually.</p>
8629
8630 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8631 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8632
8633       </div>
8634       <div class="tags">
8635
8636
8637         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
8638
8639
8640       </div>
8641     </div>
8642     <div class="padding"></div>
8643
8644     <div class="entry">
8645       <div class="title">
8646         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
8647       </div>
8648       <div class="date">
8649         28th June 2010
8650       </div>
8651       <div class="body">
8652         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
8653 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
8654 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
8655 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
8656 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
8657 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
8658 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
8659 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
8660 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
8661 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
8662
8663 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
8664 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
8665 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
8666 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
8667 released.</p>
8668
8669 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
8670 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
8671 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
8672 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
8673
8674 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
8675 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8676
8677 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
8678 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
8679 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
8680 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
8681 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
8682
8683       </div>
8684       <div class="tags">
8685
8686
8687         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>.
8688
8689
8690       </div>
8691     </div>
8692     <div class="padding"></div>
8693
8694     <div class="entry">
8695       <div class="title">
8696         <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>
8697       </div>
8698       <div class="date">
8699         24th June 2010
8700       </div>
8701       <div class="body">
8702         <p>A while back, I
8703 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
8704 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
8705 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
8706 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
8707
8708 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
8709 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
8710 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
8711 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
8712
8713 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
8714 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
8715 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
8716 Debian Edu.</p>
8717
8718 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
8719 the
8720 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
8721 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
8722 available today from IETF.</p>
8723
8724 <pre>
8725 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
8726 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
8727 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
8728  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
8729         NAME 'dhcpHost'
8730         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
8731 -       SUP top
8732 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
8733         MUST cn
8734         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
8735         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
8736 </pre>
8737
8738 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
8739 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
8740 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
8741
8742 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8743 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8744
8745       </div>
8746       <div class="tags">
8747
8748
8749         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>.
8750
8751
8752       </div>
8753     </div>
8754     <div class="padding"></div>
8755
8756     <div class="entry">
8757       <div class="title">
8758         <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>
8759       </div>
8760       <div class="date">
8761         16th June 2010
8762       </div>
8763       <div class="body">
8764         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
8765 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
8766 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
8767 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
8768 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
8769 this:
8770
8771 <blockquote><pre>
8772 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8773 tasksel --new-install
8774 </pre></blockquote>
8775
8776 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
8777 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
8778 any output what so ever.
8779
8780 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
8781 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
8782 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
8783 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
8784 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
8785 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
8786 code like this:
8787
8788 <blockquote><pre>
8789 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8790 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
8791 $cmd
8792 </pre></blockquote>
8793
8794 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
8795 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
8796 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
8797 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
8798 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
8799 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
8800 installation.</p>
8801
8802 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
8803 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
8804 like this.</p>
8805
8806       </div>
8807       <div class="tags">
8808
8809
8810         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>.
8811
8812
8813       </div>
8814     </div>
8815     <div class="padding"></div>
8816
8817     <div class="entry">
8818       <div class="title">
8819         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
8820       </div>
8821       <div class="date">
8822         13th June 2010
8823       </div>
8824       <div class="body">
8825         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
8826 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
8827 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
8828 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
8829 pages.</p>
8830
8831 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
8832 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
8833 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
8834 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
8835 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
8836 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
8837 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
8838 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
8839 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
8840 see how the project is doing.</p>
8841
8842 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
8843 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
8844 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
8845 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
8846 Windows.  This is great.</p>
8847
8848       </div>
8849       <div class="tags">
8850
8851
8852         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>.
8853
8854
8855       </div>
8856     </div>
8857     <div class="padding"></div>
8858
8859     <div class="entry">
8860       <div class="title">
8861         <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>
8862       </div>
8863       <div class="date">
8864         13th June 2010
8865       </div>
8866       <div class="body">
8867         <p>My
8868 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
8869 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
8870 finally made the upgrade logs available from
8871 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
8872 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
8873 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
8874 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
8875
8876 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
8877 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
8878 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
8879 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
8880 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
8881 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
8882 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
8883 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
8884
8885 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
8886 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
8887 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
8888 too surprising.</p>
8889
8890 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
8891 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
8892 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
8893 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
8894 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
8895 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
8896 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
8897 continue.</p>
8898
8899 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
8900 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
8901   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
8902   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
8903   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
8904   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
8905   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
8906   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
8907   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
8908   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
8909   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
8910   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
8911   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
8912   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
8913   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
8914   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8915   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
8916   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
8917   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
8918   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
8919   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
8920   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
8921   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
8922   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
8923   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
8924   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
8925   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
8926   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
8927   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
8928   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
8929
8930 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
8931
8932 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
8933   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
8934   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
8935   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
8936   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
8937   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
8938   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
8939   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
8940   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
8941   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
8942   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
8943   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
8944   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
8945   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
8946   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
8947   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
8948   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
8949   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
8950   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
8951   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
8952   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
8953   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
8954   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
8955   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
8956   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
8957   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
8958   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
8959   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
8960   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
8961   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8962   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
8963   zip</p>
8964
8965 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
8966
8967 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
8968   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
8969   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
8970   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
8971   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
8972   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
8973   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
8974   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
8975   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
8976   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
8977   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
8978   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
8979   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
8980   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
8981   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8982   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
8983   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
8984   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
8985   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
8986   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
8987   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
8988   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
8989   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
8990   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
8991   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
8992   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
8993   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
8994   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
8995
8996 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
8997 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
8998   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
8999   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
9000   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
9001   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
9002   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
9003   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
9004   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
9005   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
9006   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
9007   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
9008   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
9009   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
9010   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
9011   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
9012   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
9013   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
9014   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
9015   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
9016   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
9017   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
9018   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
9019   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
9020   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
9021   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
9022   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
9023   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
9024   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
9025   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
9026   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
9027   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
9028   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
9029   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
9030   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
9031   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9032   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
9033   xulrunner-1.9</p>
9034
9035
9036       </div>
9037       <div class="tags">
9038
9039
9040         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>.
9041
9042
9043       </div>
9044     </div>
9045     <div class="padding"></div>
9046
9047     <div class="entry">
9048       <div class="title">
9049         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
9050       </div>
9051       <div class="date">
9052         11th June 2010
9053       </div>
9054       <div class="body">
9055         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
9056 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
9057 have been discovered and reported in the process
9058 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
9059 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
9060 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
9061 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
9062 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
9063
9064 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
9065 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
9066 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
9067 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
9068 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
9069 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
9070
9071 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
9072 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
9073 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
9074 is created.  The bug report
9075 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
9076 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
9077 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
9078 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
9079 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
9080 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
9081 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
9082 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
9083 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
9084 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
9085 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
9086 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
9087 Debian Squeeze.</p>
9088
9089 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
9090 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
9091 trick:</p>
9092
9093 <blockquote><pre>
9094 #!/bin/sh
9095 set -ex
9096
9097 if [ "$1" ] ; then
9098     desktop=$1
9099 else
9100     desktop=gnome
9101 fi
9102
9103 from=lenny
9104 to=squeeze
9105
9106 exec &lt; /dev/null
9107 unset LANG
9108 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
9109 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
9110 fuser -mv .
9111 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
9112 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
9113 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
9114 #!/bin/sh
9115 exit 101
9116 EOF
9117 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
9118 exit_cleanup() {
9119     umount $tmpdir/proc
9120 }
9121 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
9122 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
9123 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
9124
9125 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
9126
9127 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
9128 # to return the correct answers.
9129 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
9130     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
9131
9132 # Include the desktop and laptop task
9133 for test in desktop laptop ; do
9134     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
9135 #!/bin/sh
9136 exit 2
9137 EOF
9138     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
9139 done
9140
9141 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
9142 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
9143 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
9144 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
9145
9146 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
9147 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
9148 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
9149 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
9150 fuser -mv
9151 </pre></blockquote>
9152
9153 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
9154 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
9155 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
9156 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
9157 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
9158 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
9159
9160 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
9161 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
9162 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
9163 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
9164 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
9165 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
9166 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
9167
9168 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
9169 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
9170 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
9171 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
9172 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
9173 packages.</p>
9174
9175       </div>
9176       <div class="tags">
9177
9178
9179         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>.
9180
9181
9182       </div>
9183     </div>
9184     <div class="padding"></div>
9185
9186     <div class="entry">
9187       <div class="title">
9188         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html">Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</a>
9189       </div>
9190       <div class="date">
9191          6th June 2010
9192       </div>
9193       <div class="body">
9194         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
9195 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
9196 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
9197 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
9198 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
9199 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
9200 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
9201
9202 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
9203 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
9204 COLUMNS):</p>
9205
9206 <blockquote><pre>
9207 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
9208 previous=N
9209 PREVLEVEL=
9210 RUNLEVEL=
9211 runlevel=S
9212 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
9213 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
9214 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
9215 </pre></blockquote>
9216
9217 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
9218 script.</p>
9219
9220 <blockquote><pre>
9221 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
9222 previous=N
9223 PREVLEVEL=N
9224 RUNLEVEL=S
9225 runlevel=S
9226 </pre></blockquote>
9227
9228 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
9229 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
9230 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
9231
9232 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
9233 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
9234 choice.</p>
9235
9236       </div>
9237       <div class="tags">
9238
9239
9240         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>.
9241
9242
9243       </div>
9244     </div>
9245     <div class="padding"></div>
9246
9247     <div class="entry">
9248       <div class="title">
9249         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
9250       </div>
9251       <div class="date">
9252          6th June 2010
9253       </div>
9254       <div class="body">
9255         <p>Via the
9256 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
9257 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
9258 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
9259 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
9260 following the standards wars of today.</p>
9261
9262       </div>
9263       <div class="tags">
9264
9265
9266         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>.
9267
9268
9269       </div>
9270     </div>
9271     <div class="padding"></div>
9272
9273     <div class="entry">
9274       <div class="title">
9275         <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>
9276       </div>
9277       <div class="date">
9278          3rd June 2010
9279       </div>
9280       <div class="body">
9281         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
9282 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
9283 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
9284 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
9285 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
9286
9287 <blockquote><pre>
9288 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
9289   vendor                    count
9290   Dell Computer Corporation     1
9291     PowerEdge 1750              1
9292   IBM                           1
9293     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
9294   Intel                         2
9295   [no-dmi-info]                 3
9296 maintainer:~#
9297 </pre></blockquote>
9298
9299 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
9300 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
9301 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
9302 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
9303 option to list the individual machines.</p>
9304
9305 <p>A larger list is
9306 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
9307 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
9308 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
9309 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
9310 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
9311 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
9312 collector.</p>
9313
9314       </div>
9315       <div class="tags">
9316
9317
9318         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>.
9319
9320
9321       </div>
9322     </div>
9323     <div class="padding"></div>
9324
9325     <div class="entry">
9326       <div class="title">
9327         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
9328       </div>
9329       <div class="date">
9330          1st June 2010
9331       </div>
9332       <div class="body">
9333         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
9334 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
9335 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
9336 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
9337 wait.</p>
9338
9339 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
9340 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
9341 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
9342 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
9343 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
9344 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
9345
9346 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
9347 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
9348 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
9349 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
9350 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
9351 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
9352 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
9353 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
9354
9355 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
9356
9357       </div>
9358       <div class="tags">
9359
9360
9361         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>.
9362
9363
9364       </div>
9365     </div>
9366     <div class="padding"></div>
9367
9368     <div class="entry">
9369       <div class="title">
9370         <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>
9371       </div>
9372       <div class="date">
9373         27th May 2010
9374       </div>
9375       <div class="body">
9376         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
9377 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
9378 issues are known and should be solved:
9379
9380 <p><ul>
9381
9382 <li>The wicd package seen to
9383 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
9384 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
9385 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
9386 seem to be on the case.</li>
9387
9388 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
9389 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
9390 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
9391 maintainer is on the case.</li>
9392
9393 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
9394 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
9395 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
9396 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
9397 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
9398 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
9399 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
9400 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
9401
9402 </ul></p>
9403
9404 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
9405 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
9406 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
9407 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
9408
9409 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
9410 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
9411 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
9412 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
9413
9414 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
9415
9416       </div>
9417       <div class="tags">
9418
9419
9420         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>.
9421
9422
9423       </div>
9424     </div>
9425     <div class="padding"></div>
9426
9427     <div class="entry">
9428       <div class="title">
9429         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
9430       </div>
9431       <div class="date">
9432         22nd May 2010
9433       </div>
9434       <div class="body">
9435         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
9436 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
9437 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
9438 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
9439
9440 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
9441 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
9442 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
9443 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
9444 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
9445 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
9446 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
9447 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
9448 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
9449 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
9450 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
9451 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
9452 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
9453 going to work.</p>
9454
9455 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
9456 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
9457 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
9458 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
9459 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
9460 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
9461 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
9462 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
9463 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
9464 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
9465 Edu.</p>
9466
9467 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
9468 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
9469 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
9470 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
9471 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
9472 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
9473
9474 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
9475 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
9476
9477       </div>
9478       <div class="tags">
9479
9480
9481         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>.
9482
9483
9484       </div>
9485     </div>
9486     <div class="padding"></div>
9487
9488     <div class="entry">
9489       <div class="title">
9490         <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>
9491       </div>
9492       <div class="date">
9493         19th May 2010
9494       </div>
9495       <div class="body">
9496         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
9497 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
9498 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
9499 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
9500 into unstable.  The
9501 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
9502 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
9503 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
9504 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
9505 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
9506 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
9507 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
9508
9509 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
9510 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
9511 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
9512 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
9513 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
9514 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
9515 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
9516 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
9517
9518 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
9519 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
9520 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
9521 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
9522 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
9523 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
9524 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
9525
9526 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
9527 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
9528 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
9529 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
9530 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
9531 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
9532 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
9533 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
9534 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
9535 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
9536 on the home directory servers.</p>
9537
9538 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
9539 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
9540 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
9541 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
9542 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
9543 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
9544
9545 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9546 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9547
9548       </div>
9549       <div class="tags">
9550
9551
9552         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9553
9554
9555       </div>
9556     </div>
9557     <div class="padding"></div>
9558
9559     <div class="entry">
9560       <div class="title">
9561         <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>
9562       </div>
9563       <div class="date">
9564         14th May 2010
9565       </div>
9566       <div class="body">
9567         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
9568 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
9569 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
9570 expected, if I am to believe the
9571 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
9572 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
9573 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
9574 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
9575 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
9576 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
9577 version.</p>
9578
9579 More information about
9580 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
9581 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
9582 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
9583 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
9584
9585 <blockquote><pre>
9586 CONCURRENCY=none
9587 </pre></blockquote>
9588
9589 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
9590 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
9591 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
9592 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
9593
9594       </div>
9595       <div class="tags">
9596
9597
9598         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>.
9599
9600
9601       </div>
9602     </div>
9603     <div class="padding"></div>
9604
9605     <div class="entry">
9606       <div class="title">
9607         <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>
9608       </div>
9609       <div class="date">
9610         14th May 2010
9611       </div>
9612       <div class="body">
9613         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
9614 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
9615 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
9616 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
9617 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
9618 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
9619 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
9620 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
9621
9622 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
9623 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
9624 this on the collector host:</p>
9625
9626 <blockquote><pre>
9627 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
9628 </pre></blockquote>
9629
9630 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
9631 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
9632
9633 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
9634 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
9635 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
9636 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
9637 written yet.</p>
9638
9639       </div>
9640       <div class="tags">
9641
9642
9643         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>.
9644
9645
9646       </div>
9647     </div>
9648     <div class="padding"></div>
9649
9650     <div class="entry">
9651       <div class="title">
9652         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
9653       </div>
9654       <div class="date">
9655         13th May 2010
9656       </div>
9657       <div class="body">
9658         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
9659 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
9660 has been
9661 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
9662
9663 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
9664 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
9665 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
9666 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
9667 based boot system.  Tollef is
9668 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
9669 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
9670 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
9671 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
9672 at the moment do not.</p>
9673
9674 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
9675 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
9676 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
9677 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
9678 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
9679 way forward.</p>
9680
9681 <p>In the mean time, based on the
9682 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
9683 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
9684 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
9685 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
9686 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
9687 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
9688 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
9689 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
9690
9691       </div>
9692       <div class="tags">
9693
9694
9695         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>.
9696
9697
9698       </div>
9699     </div>
9700     <div class="padding"></div>
9701
9702     <div class="entry">
9703       <div class="title">
9704         <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>
9705       </div>
9706       <div class="date">
9707          6th May 2010
9708       </div>
9709       <div class="body">
9710         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
9711 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
9712 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
9713 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
9714 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
9715 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
9716 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
9717
9718 <blockquote><pre>
9719 CONCURRENCY=makefile
9720 </pre></blockquote>
9721
9722 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
9723 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
9724 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
9725 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
9726 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
9727 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
9728 make this happen.</p>
9729
9730 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
9731 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
9732 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
9733 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
9734 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
9735
9736 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
9737 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
9738 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
9739 fix the remaining issues.</p>
9740
9741 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
9742 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
9743 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
9744 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
9745
9746       </div>
9747       <div class="tags">
9748
9749
9750         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>.
9751
9752
9753       </div>
9754     </div>
9755     <div class="padding"></div>
9756
9757     <div class="entry">
9758       <div class="title">
9759         <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>
9760       </div>
9761       <div class="date">
9762          2nd May 2010
9763       </div>
9764       <div class="body">
9765         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
9766 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
9767 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
9768
9769 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
9770 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
9771 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
9772 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
9773 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
9774
9775 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
9776 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
9777
9778 <blockquote><pre>
9779 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
9780 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
9781 Password expires                                        : never
9782 Password inactive                                       : never
9783 Account expires                                         : never
9784 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
9785 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
9786 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
9787 root@tjener:~#
9788 </pre></blockquote>
9789
9790 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
9791 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
9792 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
9793 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
9794 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
9795 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
9796
9797 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
9798 intended:</p>
9799
9800 <blockquote><pre>
9801 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
9802 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
9803 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
9804 Password expires                                        : never
9805 Password inactive                                       : never
9806 Account expires                                         : never
9807 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
9808 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
9809 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
9810 root@tjener:~#
9811 </pre></blockquote>
9812
9813 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
9814 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
9815 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
9816
9817 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
9818 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
9819
9820 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
9821 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9822
9823 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
9824 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
9825 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
9826 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
9827 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
9828 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
9829 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
9830
9831 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
9832 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
9833 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
9834 change.</p>
9835
9836       </div>
9837       <div class="tags">
9838
9839
9840         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9841
9842
9843       </div>
9844     </div>
9845     <div class="padding"></div>
9846
9847     <div class="entry">
9848       <div class="title">
9849         <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>
9850       </div>
9851       <div class="date">
9852         28th April 2010
9853       </div>
9854       <div class="body">
9855         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
9856 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
9857 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
9858 and go.</p>
9859
9860 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
9861 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
9862 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
9863 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
9864
9865 <ul>
9866
9867  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
9868    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
9869    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
9870    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
9871    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
9872    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
9873    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
9874    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
9875    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
9876    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
9877    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
9878    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
9879
9880  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
9881    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
9882    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
9883    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
9884    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
9885    or the Fedora developed
9886    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
9887    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
9888
9889  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
9890    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
9891    directory, using unison.</li>
9892
9893  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
9894    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
9895    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
9896    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
9897    implemented.</li>
9898
9899  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
9900    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
9901
9902  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
9903    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
9904    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
9905
9906 </ul>
9907
9908 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
9909 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
9910 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
9911 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
9912 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
9913 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
9914 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
9915 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
9916 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
9917
9918 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9919 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9920
9921       </div>
9922       <div class="tags">
9923
9924
9925         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9926
9927
9928       </div>
9929     </div>
9930     <div class="padding"></div>
9931
9932     <div class="entry">
9933       <div class="title">
9934         <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>
9935       </div>
9936       <div class="date">
9937         19th April 2010
9938       </div>
9939       <div class="body">
9940         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
9941 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
9942 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
9943 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
9944 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
9945 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
9946 restrictions on the web, for example from
9947 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
9948 epub-version from
9949 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
9950 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
9951 strongly recommend this book.</p>
9952
9953       </div>
9954       <div class="tags">
9955
9956
9957         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>.
9958
9959
9960       </div>
9961     </div>
9962     <div class="padding"></div>
9963
9964     <div class="entry">
9965       <div class="title">
9966         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
9967       </div>
9968       <div class="date">
9969         14th April 2010
9970       </div>
9971       <div class="body">
9972         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
9973 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
9974 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
9975 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
9976 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
9977 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
9978 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
9979 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
9980 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
9981
9982 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
9983 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
9984 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
9985 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
9986 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
9987
9988 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
9989 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
9990
9991 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
9992 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
9993 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
9994 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
9995 to work properly.</p>
9996
9997 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
9998 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
9999 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
10000 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
10001 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
10002 time.</p>
10003
10004 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
10005 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
10006 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
10007 up in a few days.</p>
10008
10009       </div>
10010       <div class="tags">
10011
10012
10013         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10014
10015
10016       </div>
10017     </div>
10018     <div class="padding"></div>
10019
10020     <div class="entry">
10021       <div class="title">
10022         <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>
10023       </div>
10024       <div class="date">
10025          6th March 2010
10026       </div>
10027       <div class="body">
10028         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
10029 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
10030 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
10031 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
10032 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
10033 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
10034
10035 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
10036 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
10037 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
10038 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
10039
10040 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
10041 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
10042 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
10043 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
10044 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
10045 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
10046
10047       </div>
10048       <div class="tags">
10049
10050
10051         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10052
10053
10054       </div>
10055     </div>
10056     <div class="padding"></div>
10057
10058     <div class="entry">
10059       <div class="title">
10060         <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>
10061       </div>
10062       <div class="date">
10063         11th February 2010
10064       </div>
10065       <div class="body">
10066         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
10067 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
10068 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
10069 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
10070 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
10071 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
10072 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
10073
10074 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
10075
10076 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
10077 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
10078 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
10079 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
10080
10081       </div>
10082       <div class="tags">
10083
10084
10085         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10086
10087
10088       </div>
10089     </div>
10090     <div class="padding"></div>
10091
10092     <div class="entry">
10093       <div class="title">
10094         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
10095       </div>
10096       <div class="date">
10097         27th January 2010
10098       </div>
10099       <div class="body">
10100         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
10101 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
10102 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
10103 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
10104 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
10105 further.</p>
10106
10107 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
10108 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
10109 configured to be a server for the
10110 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
10111 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
10112 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
10113 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
10114 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
10115 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
10116 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
10117 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
10118 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
10119 and Nagios configuration.</p>
10120
10121 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
10122 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
10123 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
10124 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
10125
10126 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
10127 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
10128 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
10129 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
10130 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
10131 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
10132 the machine.</p>
10133
10134 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
10135 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
10136 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
10137 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
10138
10139 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
10140 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
10141 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
10142 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
10143 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
10144 everything is taken care of.</p>
10145
10146       </div>
10147       <div class="tags">
10148
10149
10150         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10151
10152
10153       </div>
10154     </div>
10155     <div class="padding"></div>
10156
10157     <div class="entry">
10158       <div class="title">
10159         <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>
10160       </div>
10161       <div class="date">
10162         12th August 2009
10163       </div>
10164       <div class="body">
10165         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
10166 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
10167 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
10168 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
10169
10170 <table>
10171 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
10172 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
10173 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
10174 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
10175 </table>
10176
10177 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
10178 got these numbers:</p>
10179
10180 <table>
10181 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
10182 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
10183 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
10184 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
10185 </table>
10186
10187 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
10188
10189 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
10190 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
10191 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
10192 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
10193 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
10194
10195
10196 <table>
10197 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
10198 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
10199 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
10200 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
10201 </table>
10202
10203 <p>And with 'site:no':
10204
10205 <table>
10206 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
10207 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
10208 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
10209 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
10210 </table>
10211
10212 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
10213 numbers.</p>
10214
10215       </div>
10216       <div class="tags">
10217
10218
10219         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>.
10220
10221
10222       </div>
10223     </div>
10224     <div class="padding"></div>
10225
10226     <div class="entry">
10227       <div class="title">
10228         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
10229       </div>
10230       <div class="date">
10231          8th August 2009
10232       </div>
10233       <div class="body">
10234         <p>According to <a
10235 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
10236 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
10237 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
10238 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
10239 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
10240 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
10241 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
10242 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
10243 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
10244 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
10245
10246 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
10247 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
10248 seminar this autumn.</p>
10249
10250       </div>
10251       <div class="tags">
10252
10253
10254         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>.
10255
10256
10257       </div>
10258     </div>
10259     <div class="padding"></div>
10260
10261     <div class="entry">
10262       <div class="title">
10263         <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>
10264       </div>
10265       <div class="date">
10266         27th July 2009
10267       </div>
10268       <div class="body">
10269         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
10270 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
10271 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
10272 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
10273 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
10274 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
10275 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
10276
10277 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
10278 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
10279 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
10280
10281       </div>
10282       <div class="tags">
10283
10284
10285         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>.
10286
10287
10288       </div>
10289     </div>
10290     <div class="padding"></div>
10291
10292     <div class="entry">
10293       <div class="title">
10294         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
10295       </div>
10296       <div class="date">
10297         22nd July 2009
10298       </div>
10299       <div class="body">
10300         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
10301 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
10302 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
10303 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
10304 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
10305 the package up to date.</p>
10306
10307 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
10308 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
10309 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
10310 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
10311 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
10312 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
10313 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
10314 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
10315 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
10316 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
10317 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
10318 working on the future release.</p>
10319
10320 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
10321 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
10322
10323       </div>
10324       <div class="tags">
10325
10326
10327         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>.
10328
10329
10330       </div>
10331     </div>
10332     <div class="padding"></div>
10333
10334     <div class="entry">
10335       <div class="title">
10336         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
10337       </div>
10338       <div class="date">
10339         24th June 2009
10340       </div>
10341       <div class="body">
10342         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
10343 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
10344 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
10345 funded
10346 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
10347 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
10348 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
10349 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
10350 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
10351 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
10352
10353 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
10354 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
10355 boot:</p>
10356
10357 <ul>
10358
10359 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
10360
10361 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
10362    clock is in UTC.</li>
10363
10364 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
10365    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10366    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
10367
10368 </ul>
10369
10370 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
10371 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
10372 Villegas</a>.
10373
10374 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
10375 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
10376 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
10377 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
10378 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
10379 using this.</p>
10380
10381 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
10382 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
10383 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
10384 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
10385 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
10386 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
10387 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
10388
10389       </div>
10390       <div class="tags">
10391
10392
10393         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>.
10394
10395
10396       </div>
10397     </div>
10398     <div class="padding"></div>
10399
10400     <div class="entry">
10401       <div class="title">
10402         <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>
10403       </div>
10404       <div class="date">
10405          2nd May 2009
10406       </div>
10407       <div class="body">
10408         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
10409 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
10410 do not yet know them.</p>
10411
10412 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
10413 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
10414 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
10415 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
10416 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
10417 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
10418 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
10419 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
10420 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
10421 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
10422 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
10423
10424 <p>The second one is
10425 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
10426 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
10427 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
10428 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
10429 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
10430 and the company behind it is running
10431 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
10432 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
10433 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
10434 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
10435 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
10436 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
10437 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
10438 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
10439
10440 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
10441 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
10442 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
10443 surrounded by today.</p>
10444
10445       </div>
10446       <div class="tags">
10447
10448
10449         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>.
10450
10451
10452       </div>
10453     </div>
10454     <div class="padding"></div>
10455
10456     <div class="entry">
10457       <div class="title">
10458         <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>
10459       </div>
10460       <div class="date">
10461         28th April 2009
10462       </div>
10463       <div class="body">
10464         <p>Julien Blache
10465 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
10466 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
10467 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
10468 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
10469 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
10470 properties.</p>
10471
10472       </div>
10473       <div class="tags">
10474
10475
10476         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>.
10477
10478
10479       </div>
10480     </div>
10481     <div class="padding"></div>
10482
10483     <div class="entry">
10484       <div class="title">
10485         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
10486       </div>
10487       <div class="date">
10488          5th April 2009
10489       </div>
10490       <div class="body">
10491         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
10492 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
10493 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
10494 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
10495 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
10496 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
10497 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
10498 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
10499
10500 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
10501 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
10502 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
10503   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
10504   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
10505
10506 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
10507 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
10508 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
10509 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
10510
10511 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
10512 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
10513 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
10514 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
10515
10516 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
10517 set -e
10518 URL="$1"
10519 SAVEFILE="$2"
10520 DURATION="$3"
10521 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
10522   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
10523   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
10524 pid=$!
10525 sleep $DURATION
10526 kill $pid
10527 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
10528
10529       </div>
10530       <div class="tags">
10531
10532
10533         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>.
10534
10535
10536       </div>
10537     </div>
10538     <div class="padding"></div>
10539
10540     <div class="entry">
10541       <div class="title">
10542         <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>
10543       </div>
10544       <div class="date">
10545         30th March 2009
10546       </div>
10547       <div class="body">
10548         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
10549 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
10550 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
10551 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
10552 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
10553 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
10554 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
10555 application.</p>
10556
10557 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
10558 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
10559 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
10560 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
10561 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
10562 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
10563 blocked from doing so.</p>
10564
10565 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
10566 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
10567 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
10568 requirements change.</p>
10569
10570 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
10571 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
10572 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
10573
10574       </div>
10575       <div class="tags">
10576
10577
10578         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>.
10579
10580
10581       </div>
10582     </div>
10583     <div class="padding"></div>
10584
10585     <div class="entry">
10586       <div class="title">
10587         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
10588       </div>
10589       <div class="date">
10590         29th March 2009
10591       </div>
10592       <div class="body">
10593         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
10594 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
10595 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
10596 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
10597 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
10598 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
10599 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
10600 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
10601 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
10602 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
10603 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
10604 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
10605 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
10606 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
10607 now. :)</p>
10608
10609       </div>
10610       <div class="tags">
10611
10612
10613         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>.
10614
10615
10616       </div>
10617     </div>
10618     <div class="padding"></div>
10619
10620     <div class="entry">
10621       <div class="title">
10622         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new  LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</a>
10623       </div>
10624       <div class="date">
10625         29th March 2009
10626       </div>
10627       <div class="body">
10628         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
10629 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
10630 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
10631 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
10632 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
10633 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
10634
10635 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
10636 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
10637 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
10638 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
10639 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
10640 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
10641 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
10642 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
10643 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
10644 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
10645 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
10646 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
10647 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
10648
10649 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
10650 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
10651 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
10652 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
10653
10654 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
10655 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
10656
10657 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
10658 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
10659 new IETF work group?</p>
10660
10661       </div>
10662       <div class="tags">
10663
10664
10665         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>.
10666
10667
10668       </div>
10669     </div>
10670     <div class="padding"></div>
10671
10672     <div class="entry">
10673       <div class="title">
10674         <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>
10675       </div>
10676       <div class="date">
10677         28th February 2009
10678       </div>
10679       <div class="body">
10680         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
10681 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
10682 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
10683 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
10684 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
10685 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
10686 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
10687 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
10688 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
10689 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
10690 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
10691 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
10692 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
10693 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
10694 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
10695 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
10696 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
10697 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
10698 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
10699 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
10700 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
10701 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
10702 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
10703 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
10704 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
10705 machine.</p>
10706
10707 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
10708 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
10709 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
10710 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
10711 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
10712 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
10713 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
10714
10715 <pre>
10716 use LWP::Simple;
10717 use POSIX;
10718 use WWW::Mechanize;
10719 use Date::Parse;
10720 [...]
10721 sub get_support_info {
10722     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
10723     my $str;
10724
10725     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
10726         # fetch website from Dell support
10727         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";
10728         my $webpage = get($url);
10729         return undef unless ($webpage);
10730
10731         my $daysleft = -1;
10732         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
10733         foreach my $line (@lines) {
10734             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
10735             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
10736             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
10737
10738             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
10739             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
10740             my $lastend = "";
10741             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
10742                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
10743
10744                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
10745                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
10746                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
10747                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
10748                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
10749                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
10750                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
10751             }
10752             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
10753             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
10754                 if ($lastend lt $today);
10755         }
10756     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
10757         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
10758         my $url =
10759             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
10760         $mech->get($url);
10761         my $fields = {
10762             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
10763             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
10764             'country' => 'NO',
10765             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
10766             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
10767         };
10768         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
10769                             fields      => $fields );
10770         # Next step is screen scraping
10771         my $content = $mech->content();
10772
10773         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
10774         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
10775         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
10776         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
10777
10778         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
10779
10780         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
10781             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
10782                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
10783             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
10784             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
10785                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
10786             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
10787                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
10788
10789             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
10790
10791             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
10792                 if ($end lt $today);
10793         }
10794     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
10795         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
10796         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
10797         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
10798             my $content =
10799                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
10800             if ($content) {
10801                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
10802                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
10803                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
10804                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
10805
10806                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
10807                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
10808
10809                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
10810
10811                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
10812                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
10813                     if ($end lt $today);
10814             }
10815         }
10816     }
10817     return $str;
10818 }
10819 </pre>
10820
10821 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
10822 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
10823 from dmidecode.</p>
10824
10825 <pre>
10826 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
10827                        "447707-B21");
10828 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
10829 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
10830                        "1234567");
10831 </pre>
10832
10833 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
10834 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
10835
10836 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
10837 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
10838 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
10839 do so.</p>
10840
10841       </div>
10842       <div class="tags">
10843
10844
10845         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>.
10846
10847
10848       </div>
10849     </div>
10850     <div class="padding"></div>
10851
10852     <div class="entry">
10853       <div class="title">
10854         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
10855       </div>
10856       <div class="date">
10857         20th February 2009
10858       </div>
10859       <div class="body">
10860         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
10861 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
10862 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
10863 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
10864 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
10865 the "missing" computer.</p>
10866
10867 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
10868 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
10869 code blocks as defined in the
10870 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
10871 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
10872 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
10873 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
10874 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
10875 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
10876 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
10877 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
10878 codes.</p>
10879
10880 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
10881 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
10882 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
10883 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
10884 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
10885 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
10886
10887 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
10888 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
10889 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
10890 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
10891 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
10892 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
10893 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
10894 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
10895 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
10896 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
10897
10898 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
10899 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
10900 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
10901
10902       </div>
10903       <div class="tags">
10904
10905
10906         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>.
10907
10908
10909       </div>
10910     </div>
10911     <div class="padding"></div>
10912
10913     <div class="entry">
10914       <div class="title">
10915         <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>
10916       </div>
10917       <div class="date">
10918         17th January 2009
10919       </div>
10920       <div class="body">
10921         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
10922 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
10923 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
10924 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
10925 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
10926 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
10927 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
10928 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
10929 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
10930 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
10931 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
10932 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
10933 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
10934 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
10935
10936 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
10937 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
10938 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
10939 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
10940 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
10941 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
10942 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
10943 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
10944 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
10945 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
10946 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
10947 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
10948 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
10949 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
10950 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
10951 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
10952 playing when the download is done.</p>
10953
10954 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
10955 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
10956 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
10957 too.</p>
10958
10959 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
10960 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
10961 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
10962 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
10963
10964       </div>
10965       <div class="tags">
10966
10967
10968         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>.
10969
10970
10971       </div>
10972     </div>
10973     <div class="padding"></div>
10974
10975     <div class="entry">
10976       <div class="title">
10977         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
10978       </div>
10979       <div class="date">
10980         28th December 2008
10981       </div>
10982       <div class="body">
10983         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
10984 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
10985 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
10986 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
10987 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
10988 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
10989 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
10990 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
10991 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
10992 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
10993 source, sink and mixer applications and
10994 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
10995 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
10996 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
10997 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
10998 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
10999 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
11000 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
11001 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
11002 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
11003
11004 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
11005 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
11006 larger stick as well.</p>
11007
11008       </div>
11009       <div class="tags">
11010
11011
11012         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>.
11013
11014
11015       </div>
11016     </div>
11017     <div class="padding"></div>
11018
11019     <div class="entry">
11020       <div class="title">
11021         <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>
11022       </div>
11023       <div class="date">
11024          7th December 2008
11025       </div>
11026       <div class="body">
11027         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
11028 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
11029 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
11030 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
11031 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
11032 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
11033 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
11034 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
11035
11036 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
11037 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
11038 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
11039 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
11040 of these cards.</p>
11041
11042       </div>
11043       <div class="tags">
11044
11045
11046         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>.
11047
11048
11049       </div>
11050     </div>
11051     <div class="padding"></div>
11052
11053     <div class="entry">
11054       <div class="title">
11055         <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>
11056       </div>
11057       <div class="date">
11058         25th November 2008
11059       </div>
11060       <div class="body">
11061         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
11062 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
11063 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
11064 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
11065 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
11066 notes are available on
11067 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
11068 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
11069 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
11070 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
11071 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
11072 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
11073 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
11074 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
11075 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
11076
11077 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
11078 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
11079
11080       </div>
11081       <div class="tags">
11082
11083
11084         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>.
11085
11086
11087       </div>
11088     </div>
11089     <div class="padding"></div>
11090
11091     <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>
11092     <div id="sidebar">
11093
11094
11095
11096 <h2>Archive</h2>
11097 <ul>
11098
11099 <li>2012
11100 <ul>
11101
11102 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
11103
11104 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
11105
11106 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
11107
11108 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
11109
11110 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
11111
11112 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
11113
11114 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (15)</a></li>
11115
11116 </ul></li>
11117
11118 <li>2011
11119 <ul>
11120
11121 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
11122
11123 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
11124
11125 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
11126
11127 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
11128
11129 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
11130
11131 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
11132
11133 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
11134
11135 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
11136
11137 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
11138
11139 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
11140
11141 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
11142
11143 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
11144
11145 </ul></li>
11146
11147 <li>2010
11148 <ul>
11149
11150 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
11151
11152 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
11153
11154 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
11155
11156 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
11157
11158 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
11159
11160 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
11161
11162 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
11163
11164 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
11165
11166 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
11167
11168 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
11169
11170 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
11171
11172 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
11173
11174 </ul></li>
11175
11176 <li>2009
11177 <ul>
11178
11179 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
11180
11181 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
11182
11183 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
11184
11185 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
11186
11187 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
11188
11189 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
11190
11191 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
11192
11193 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
11194
11195 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
11196
11197 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
11198
11199 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
11200
11201 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
11202
11203 </ul></li>
11204
11205 <li>2008
11206 <ul>
11207
11208 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
11209
11210 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
11211
11212 </ul></li>
11213
11214 </ul>
11215
11216
11217
11218 <h2>Tags</h2>
11219 <ul>
11220
11221  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
11222
11223  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
11224
11225  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
11226
11227  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (2)</a></li>
11228
11229  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
11230
11231  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
11232
11233  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (55)</a></li>
11234
11235  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (110)</a></li>
11236
11237  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (9)</a></li>
11238
11239  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
11240
11241  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (143)</a></li>
11242
11243  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (17)</a></li>
11244
11245  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
11246
11247  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (6)</a></li>
11248
11249  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (30)</a></li>
11250
11251  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (16)</a></li>
11252
11253  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
11254
11255  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (4)</a></li>
11256
11257  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
11258
11259  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (22)</a></li>
11260
11261  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (189)</a></li>
11262
11263  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (141)</a></li>
11264
11265  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (4)</a></li>
11266
11267  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
11268
11269  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (34)</a></li>
11270
11271  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (48)</a></li>
11272
11273  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
11274
11275  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
11276
11277  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
11278
11279  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (4)</a></li>
11280
11281  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
11282
11283  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
11284
11285  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
11286
11287  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (23)</a></li>
11288
11289  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
11290
11291  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (1)</a></li>
11292
11293  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (35)</a></li>
11294
11295  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (1)</a></li>
11296
11297  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (4)</a></li>
11298
11299  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (10)</a></li>
11300
11301  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (6)</a></li>
11302
11303  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (32)</a></li>
11304
11305  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (1)</a></li>
11306
11307  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (25)</a></li>
11308
11309 </ul>
11310
11311
11312     </div>
11313     <p style="text-align: right">
11314  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.4</a>
11315 </p>
11316
11317   </body>
11318 </html>